Tourism Minister, Ed Bartlett, has expressed delight at Air Jamaica's plan to resume flights to London, this year.
On Tuesday, the airline announced that it will resume flying to London out of Jamaica, as part of growth strategies under the control of Caribbean Airlines.
“We feel that it will enhance the options that are available to travelers and will enable us to have a deeper reach of central and Western Europe because London remains a key hub for most of central and Western Europe,” he said.
However, Mr. Bartlett says there is no immediate plan to provide any financial subsidy for the airline to fly out of London.
He said the government will seek to work with Air Jamaica and other airlines flying out of Europe, in marketing the island in an effort to bring more tourists into Jamaica, while boosting the airlines load factors.
In the meantime, Mr. Bartlett says he is expecting growth in the tourism sector to be stronger, this year, than it was in 2010.
He said preliminary forecasts are that the growth in stopover arrivals for 2011 will be twice as fast as the 3% recorded last year, while cruise arrivals are expected to grow by 5%.
“In discussions with cruise teams we have been looking at a 1.1 million to 1.3 million arrivals for 2011 and of course for the stop over we will be in excess of 2 million for this year,” Mr. Bartlett said.
He added that the expectation is that earnings in the sector will grow by 5% to over US$2 billion.
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