WESTERN BUREAU:
PRESIDENT OF the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) and general
manager for Sandals Montego Bay, Horace Peterkin, says there is a noted decline in the number of visitors for Spring Break.
"The feedback that we have received so far from the hotels that are primarily involved in Spring Break is that bookings are down substantially over last year," Mr. Peterkin said.
"The season started relatively okay due to the fact that they (the hotels) got a fair amount of last minute bookings," he explained. They are now "hoping that there will be some last-minute bookings to help with the rest of the season which goes until April."
Negril hotelier, Mark Cummings, general
manager for the Negril Beach Resorts and
president of the Negril Chamber of Commerce, said that while the season started out well, hoteliers are now experiencing a double-digit decline in comparison to the same period last year.
FIRST WEEK BUOYANT
"The first week was extremely buoyant into the second week but right now I would say that we are 40 per cent behind last year," Mr. Cummings said. "It is the entire Spring Break business that is down."
According to the hoteliers, the fall in Spring Breakers is due in large part to last year's active hurricane season. Mr. Cummings explained that the tour operators were hampered in their efforts to sell the destination to colleges as they would have had to be doing so at the height of the record-breaking hurricane season, the busiest on record.
