CORPORATE AREA hotels are reporting good occupancy levels. According to Camille Needham, Executive Director of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), although many hoteliers had expressed concern about occupancy levels at the beginning of the winter season, many properties have rebounded. "We have been fortunate, there has been quite a turn around," she said in an interview with the government's news agency, JIS.
The JHTA Executive Director said the 'healthy' first quarter figures were as a result of several factors including the Jamaica Tourist Board's (JTB) advertising campaign and the cold winter in North America.
Additionally, Mrs. Needham said several hotels had opted to carry out their own promotions and were now seeing the fruit of those efforts.
The Courtleigh Hotel and Suites in Kingston has proven to be particularly attractive to overseas corporate clients, with occupancy levels as high as 90 per cent.
"This has traditionally been a very strong period for us. A lot of international companies want to have their board meetings to plan the year before the end of the first quarter and with the winter weather, they choose to have these meetings in warmer climates," Marketing and Sales Manager, Nicola Madden Greig explained.
The Hilton Kingston Hotel is also reporting a substantial increase in corporate bookings. Its average occupancy rate is about 65 per cent.
Director of Public Relations at the Hilton, Jacqueline Knight Campbell, said that with the number of social and sporting events scheduled for the first half of the year, occupancy levels would increase in March and April.
"We are expecting March and April to be good because we'll be having Carnival and test cricket and we'll be having a number of groups coming in for various sporting events," she stressed.
"We have been marketing ourselves as offering something beyond the usual sand and sea," Miss Knight Campbell noted.
