World News | Post-pandemic tourism boom in Jamaica, airport overwhelmed

KINGSTON, April 23 (AP) — The number of tourists flocking to Jamaica’s sun-drenched beaches jumped nearly 100 percent in the first three months of the year, leading to long queues at the island’s main airport for arriving passengers for hours.

Tourism Secretary Edmund Bartlett told The Associated Press that the problem stems from a shortage of airport staff to handle the unexpected number of people flying into Montego Bay’s Sangster International Airport since the end of the pandemic.

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Bartlett told parliament later in the day that there were 1.18 million arrivals from January to March, a 94 percent increase over the same period in 2022 and a record high for Jamaica’s peak tourist season.

“The recovery has been stronger than expected and everyone around the world is having a hard time at airports because … (many) workers haven’t come back,” Bartlett said.

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Authorities plan to spend more on technology in an effort to eliminate paperwork at airports, including removing the requirement for tourists to fill out forms upon arrival, he said.

Premier Andrew Holness said the problems at Sangster highlighted the need to push ahead with a $70 million modernization and expansion project already underway.

The work is scheduled to be completed by 2025, and Honess said improvements to the Caribbean’s largest and busiest airport “will make Jamaica more attractive and competitive with other countries in the region that are also investing in Big money to improve its infrastructure.”

The runway is being extended as part of the $34 million project, which is expected to be completed in June.

“We’re excited about the prospect of Sangster being able to accommodate these large airlines that will fly to Jamaica and the Caribbean,” Bartlett told The Associated Press last week.

He said the tourism ministry’s growth plan aims to see the island attract five million tourists a year by 2025. This would represent a 35% increase from Jamaica’s peak of 3.7 million visitors in 2022.

Asian and Middle Eastern countries are among the new target markets, and the airport must be able to accommodate the large aircraft that will be used for such long-haul flights, Bartlett said.

In 2019, before the pandemic, the airport served 4.7 million passengers, including citizens and tourists. Visitor numbers to Jamaica will peak at 3.7 million in 2022, with 70% using the Sangster Gateway.

Sangster is managed by MBJ Airports Ltd., a consortium that is 74.5 percent owned by a subsidiary of Mexican airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico and the remainder by Canada’s Vantage Airport Group.

The consortium won a 30-year concession from 2003 and said it spent $287 million improving the airport in the first 18 years of the deal.

Among these improvements, the airport operator expanded the arrivals hall and departure lounge. The check-in area was recently equipped with 60 self-service kiosks and more are planned to be installed to reduce passenger processing and waiting times. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)