Minister of Tourism, Entertainment and Culture, Aloun Assamba (right), and Dr. Wykeham McNeill, State Minister for Tourism, speak to journalists at a press conference at the ministry's headquarters on Knutsford Boulevard, New Kingston, yesterday. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

Tourism arrivals exceeded three million for the first time last year, generating an estimated US$1.9 billion (J$125 billion) in revenue, according to statistics released yesterday by tourism officials.

Arriving at the afternoon press conference, Aloun Assamba, Minister of Tourism, Entertainment and Culture, said a second record had been broken with one million of the arrivals coming from a single destination - north eastern United States.

Overall, said Mrs. Assamba, the increase in arrivals represented a 15 per cent increase on 2005 with a corresponding 24 per cent increase in earnings. Stopover arrivals accounted for 1.68 million passengers while cruise passengers were 1.34 million.

High expectations

"We expect, given our forward bookings, that we will have an excellent winter and a buoyant summer," she added.

Mrs. Assamba shrugged off suggestions that tourists would be deterred by the imposition of the single Caribbean Community visa covering the Cricket World Cup period February 1- May 15.

"We expect it to run smoothly. We know that whenever there are changes there is resistance but the visa is a fact of life. To date we have no evidence of cancellations due to the need to have a visa," she said.

She added that hoteliers had not reported any effect on hotel bookings.

Addressing preparations for Cricket World Cup, the minister acknowledged that "at this particular time I don't think that we could say that we are satisfied."

However, she stressed that the tournament would leave a "legacy" of benefits by opening up new markets in India and Ireland, giving the Jamaica Tourist Board an opportunity to advertise there.