To thank key supporting travel advisors and suppliers – and welcome Toronto’s first snow of the season – the Hon. Edmund Bartlett, Minister of Tourism for Jamaica and a team of Jamaica Tourist Board staffers hosted a cocktail event in Toronto on 15NOV.
Held at the Toronto Region Board of Trade venue, the evening included tastes of Jamaica, in both food and live music, as well as an update on the island’s tourism industry.
The statistics are certainly pointing in the right direction: there are 283,000 seats available to the island for this winter from Canada, an increase of 26,000 over 2019, the industry benchmark for pre-Covid measurement. Canadians are currently the 3rd largest market to the island.
Bartlett commented on the island’s speedy, post-pandemic recovery and goal to inspire confidence and a desire to visit, pointing out it seemed to be working even on the travel trade and media at the Toronto event. “I ordered snow and miserable weather and you still came out!”
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The Caribbean nation has a new ad campaign, launched 02NOV, inviting people to “come back to their best selves in Jamaica.” As Donovan White, Director of Tourism explained, “This was one of those campaigns that we poured our hearts into – re-thinking, re-imagining, re-positioning.” It reflects, he added, all that Jamaicans lost over COVID and it encourages personal reinvention.
The multi-faceted campaign focuses on not just palm trees and beaches but the island’s uniquely Jamaican culture. Target travellers comprise adventure seekers (younger clients discovering Jamaica for the first time), family planners (young families looking forward to a much-anticipated getaway together) and seasoned travellers (an older demographic who are repeat visitors). Consumers are being wooed whether they are curious, chill, adventurous, inspired, laid back, daring, or craving.
To view the JTB commercial, click here. And to find out more about the JTB, click here.
