Big Changes in Jamaica: New Air Service, New Port, and Maybe, Casinos

The year 2010 is expected to bring some big changes in Jamaica’s tourism landscape, including the possible advent of casino gaming, Falmouth emerging as a new tourism destination, increased air traffic into Montego Bay and the opening of a new convention center. So said a delegation of Jamaican officials who were visiting New York as part of a blitz of northeastern U.S. cities to promote Jamaica as “the” winter destination.

“Casino legislation is currently in the works, but Jamaica will not become a casino destination,” said the Hon. Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism. “It will be just one attraction of many. We’re not envisioning stand-alone casinos right now but three casinos embedded in the wider development of the area.”

Indicating that legislation could be passed by the end of the first quarter 2010, Bartlett said that guests might be able to gamble in Jamaica as early as October, because of a provision that permits a temporary license for one of the three properties.  Bartlett said the opening of the casino properties would require an investment of approximately $1 billion each, and that the properties would be spread over various geographic areas, including Montego Bay and Ocho Rios. The third destination is as yet undetermined.

Over the next three to five years, Falmouth is being transformed into a new tourist destination featuring a wide variety of attractions and shore excursions, thanks to the demand from 7,500 potential passengers and crew disembarking weekly from Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas at the new Port of Falmouth, currently under construction. Bartlett projected that in excess of $32 million will be spent in the building of the cruise ship terminal alone. Part of the attraction will be high-end shopping which should also appear in other areas of the island, such as Montego Bay, thanks to some new legislation that will allow merchants to bring in more upscale goods and pay the duty on the back end, as well as return unsold merchandise without penalty. The changes were necessary because “we were seeing visitors spend around $95 per head while our neighbor (nations) were seeing expenditures of up to $500 per head,” said Bartlett.

In airline-related news, Bartlett announced that starting February 11, AirTran will begin 18 flights weekly between the U.S. and Montego Bay, with daily flights out of Baltimore and Atlanta and 4 flights weekly out of Orlando. He sees this as the newest part of Jamaica’s plan to boost tourism through providing “unprecedented access” from all areas of the United States.

The opening of the Montego Bay Convention Centre, in September or October, will allow Jamaica to welcome groups of up to 6,000 under one roof.  This, plus the development of the faith-based niche market, which will highlight the Jewish influence resulting from the Basque Jews who sought refuge in Jamaica from Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition, will open up new avenues and categories of visitors to the Island. In fact, Kingston is home to one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in the world, explained Bartlett. “We are able to do what others cannot because we are a confluence of cultures. We are a mirror of the world,” he said.