Director of Tourism (Jamaica Tourist Board)

Jamaica, like all countries in the region, is striving to attract foreign investment. What would you say are the island’s most significant competitive advantages both generally and in terms of tourism compared to other countries in the region?

In terms of investment, the main thing that I can think of is Jamaica’s new (Omnibus ) Fiscal Incentive Act, which is  from the Ministry of Finance. That Act has made incentives available to any tourism enterprise as opposed to the Act that preceded that. The previous was the Hotel Incentives Act, which of course only benefited the accommodation sector. But now any tourism entity can access the new Incentive regime. Apart from the fact that it is now available to all sectors of the tourism industry, it has also levelled the playing field among industries in terms of manufacturing, hospitality and agriculture.

As far as tourism is concerned, like all of the other countries in the region, we have wonderful weather , sand, sea, and sun. But what makes Jamaica a bit more competitive is what we have in addition to that: rivers, mountains, music, food, culture and a rich heritage. We recently got the Blue and John Crow Mountains added to the  list of  UNESCO World Heritage sites. Jerk, and the fact that this is the birthplace of that cuisine, has become internationally known as well. Of course, this is the birthplace of reggae. These additional things are attributes  that can be added to the natural attractiveness of our weather.

Additionally, the Jamaican people are very hospitable. We’ve grown up with the tourism industry. I’ll give you a quick anecdote. I used to be a hotelier. In the number of years that I was running hotels, we had a very high returning guests (repeat) factor. Jamaica has a repeat factor of about 47-48%, which is very high. So when I was an hotelier, I got a lot of this repeat business. I would have a weekly cocktail party for hundreds of returning guests, which tells you that there are many things that they love about Jamaica. The primary reason that they wanted to come back was the staff of the hotel and the people of this country . I contend that this is also a very strong attribute that Jamaica has. We are a naturally warm and welcoming group of people and that of course helps us with our tourism. 

How would you summarise Jamaica’s tourism industry today?

The tourism industry in Jamaica today is thriving. I’ll tell you a couple of things that should put this into perspective. In 2014, we had 3.5 million visitors, and we are a population of just under 3 million people. We had 2.8 million stop over visitors and 1.42 million cruise visitors. The winter that just past, specifically January through April, we had a further five per cent increase on our visitor arrivals.. So we are continuing to grow.

As we have gone into spring and into summer, growth has slowed a bit. But ironically, that all has to do with a number of facilities taking out rooms to refurbish or upgrade. A significant one is what is now the Moon Palace Jamaica Grand, which closed last September and just reopened partially a week ago. Not having that hotel in May, June, and July, we saw an impact. The immediate question that arises is about how did we grow, if we didn’t have that in January, February, or March?. We grew because there are all sorts of other places that people enter. But Jamaica Grand was particularly buoyant in the spring and summer of last year. When 720 of your rooms, which were full for most of the summer, meaning you have about 1,500 people a night there, are out of your inventory, that causes a problem. Grand Lido in Negril closed on April 26^th and has been demolished. A 560-room hotel is being built in its place but in the interim, we are short another 200 rooms. So we had grown in the winter, but we are pretty much running flat for this spring and summer so far. We anticipate that  a number of rooms will be coming back on stream for the winter with the Moon Palace Jamaica Grand, Melia Braco in Trelawny, over 100 rooms to be added in Bahai Principe and here in Kingston the Marriott Courtyard should open. I anticipate that we will be in good shape going into next year because we are maintaining our airlift from everywhere. I am already aware of some 3,600 additional seats coming in from the U.S. market, which is the largest market.

How much do Kingston’s tourism numbers impact the overall numbers?

It has impacted the numbers this year because of the continued absence of what was the Wyndham. The rooms that are in Kingston have been running full so the main answer is that we need more rooms here in Kingston. More and more, we are getting visitors to come to Kingston. If you really take the proper definition of what is a visitor, every businessperson that comes in is also a visitor. Many people think that a tourist is someone that goes to the beaches in Negril, but that is not all there is. Kingston has been getting a lot of visiting business people. The seat of government is in Kingston, so I am very anxious for the new Marriott to open. I know that the Spanish Court Hotel has added rooms late last year and it has still been running full. Sometime in the first or second quarter of 2016, we should get the ex-Wyndham back. We are very happy about the way things have been going in Kingston. We are even short on rooms as we speak. 

Founded in 1955, Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) is Jamaica’s national tourism agency and part of its role is to track industry performance. How does Jamaica’s performance in terms of tourism compare to international and regional trends?

The big ones in the region are Cancun or Riviera Maya, which is what they call the “Mexi-Caribbean,” the Dominican Republic which is led by Punta Cana, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and then Jamaica. I use the term “big four” to describe the others because those get upwards of 2 million stopover visitors per year. Puerto Rico qualifies and also doesn’t. A lot of the business that goes to Puerto Rico is as an extension of the U.S. that is going for business as opposed to leisure tourists. Punta Cana and Cancun are big. The Dominican Republic has got about 5 million tourists, which of course has thousands more rooms than we do. Cancun has got upwards of 4 million. Cuba, even before the Americans started going there big time, had 3 million visitors last year. We had 2 million. Again these are just stopover visitors, not cruise visitors.

In comparison to the region, we are keeping pace and remaining competitive. In fact we had a very strong winter in comparison to some of the others. We have the benefit of tremendous amounts of airlift into Jamaica. Every major American carrier flies here. Both British Airways and Virgin fly here. Both AirCanada, WestJet, and charters fly here. Copa from Latin America and JetAir from Belgium also fly here and we have charters from Germany. We have an airline from Holland. . We are blessed with this tremendous airlift, which keeps our numbers up. A lot of our flying is point-to-point and very little of it is hub traffic. British Airways comes here and then goes straight back. Virgin does the same. Condor, from Germany, stops in Cuba, but then they come here before they go back directly to Germany. The charters from Scandinavia come directly here and then go back.  Copa hubs in Panama but the beauty of that is that we then get visitors from some 58 different cities in Latin America that connect through that flight and can get into both Kingston and Montego Bay.

According to the Caribbean Tourism Organization, Jamaica had 2 million visitors (3.6% increase) in 2014 whilst the Dominican Republic welcomed 5.1 million visitors in 2014 (9.6% increase). Given tourism is Jamaica’s largest earner of foreign exchange and JTB’s mission is “the development and marketing of the tourism industry so that Jamaica remains the premier Caribbean tourism destination,” what are your current priorities as the Board’s Director of Tourism to ensure that Jamaica catches up, for example, with the D.R.?

DR grew 9% in 2014 and Jamaica only grew 3.6% because of the U.S. market. I recognize that we were underperforming in the U.S. market last fall, keeping in mind that I came into the job in July. We have been successful in getting things back on track from the U.S market by doing two things. First, we had a revamped advertising program where we did television, digital, out of home, cinema, an array of things. We had this strong advertising campaign during the fourth quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015. In addition to that, we sent our sales representatives back on the street to educate travel agents through workshops and seminars. We dubbed this “taking back the streets.” We embarked on that program of October of last year. We can then say that our growth on the U.S. market from January to April of 2015 was nine per cent. We identified where we were weak last year and have addressed it. Now we are moving forward and hoping to continue growing across the board. Of course we are stuck in a little slump because of that shortage of rooms but once we get out of that, we will definitely be back on track.

Again, what we are seeing now, in terms of the numbers being a little bit flat is not a shortage of air seats or lack of demand. Some of those very airlines have been watching and will be prepared for the demand. Southwest brought in their own metal in July of 2014. I was making an analysis for the winter business, and it looks like they will be carrying 11-12% of the business, which is almost 40,000 people. That’s against American Airlines who carry around 16% and has been here for years. So the point is that they really are paying attention to this. Southwest is putting in a non-stop from Houston in November. American Airlines just announced that they are putting in a non-stop, weekend flight from Los Angles starting in December. What is good about these flights coming out of Houston and Los Angles is that further enhances our potential from Asia, which we are also working on. We have been discussing this with not only Americans but the Canadians as to how we can get more Asians into here, particularly tourists from China.

I would like to quote Professor Buhalis, from the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research at Bournemouth University in England, who spoke at last year’s International Tourism UWI Tourism Conference in St James. He asserted that “For the time being [Jamaica] is a very traditional 'come along stay on the beach, dance a little bit, kill yourself with food and drink and get the hell out of here', and that is not engaging, it's not about looking into the communities, reggae heritage or pirate stories.” What is the JTB doing to market a more diverse product to the world?

With the greatest of respect, I would like to say that the Professor is wrong. That’s precisely what I was saying earlier that what we see as our competitive advantages are exactly those things. That is why we are aggressively promoting our music festivals, musical heritage, heritage sites, food, and warmth of our people. We are making the statement in a number of ways that we are more than a beach. We are a country and it is the country that has that soul, vibe and culture. The television spot that I am using at the moment, which of course uses Bob Marley’s music, goes something like, “There is something in the people. There is something in the air. There is something in the water. There is something in the food. It’s called ‘alright.’ And you can only find it here. Jamaica, home of ‘alright.’” The message that we are trying to get across is that it’s something out there, which you can’t find anywhere else, and it really runs across more than the beaches. It’s not just the great weather; it’s more. It’s the people, the history, the culture, the music, the food and so on. We are also working very assiduously at getting the community tourism enterprises up to scratch so we can have even more interaction in the communities with more visitors and so on. So we want to do exactly what this professor claims we are not doing, and that is to engage our customers.

Our single largest market is the Americans and the truth is that Americans are not always interested in exploring the country. There is nothing bad about this, it is just the way it is. The English, Germans etc, all tend to stay for 14-21 nights. Americans stay an average of five nights, but this is naturally so due to geography. It takes an hour and a half to get here from Miami, but it takes 10 hours to get here from London. What the Germans in particular tend to do is come and spend one week in a hotel, a week driving around the island visiting multiple different points – maybe two nights in Port Antonio, one night in Kingston, and so on. That’s natural for the Germans. Scandinavians, whom we are beginning to get a lot, are similar. They explore. So this professor needs to know that almost two thirds of our market comes from the United States and it so happens that they aren’t always as adventurous.

There are many music events here in Jamaica such as Sumfest and Dream Weekend. How do you incorporate these events into your campaign?

We tend to be sponsors of these events. We offer  other  support in some cases then work closely with them to bring in media to use the event to further publicise the fact that these events are happening. There is a program at the moment called JamRock Summer, 90 Days of Summer. We are using entertainment to sell the destination and to highlight that these things are happening here. This is also a way that Kingston comes in because many of these things take place in Kingston. There are events on the north coast as well but not all of these events are music related – take the event Arts in the Park as an example.

How do sports become involved?

We are trying to integrate sports a bit more. We are trying as much as possible to capitalize on the fact that we demonstrate such prowess on the international circuit. We are doing this but are trying to integrate it even a bit more. We are also working to use sporting events as an attractor, for example, the CPL that took place recently. We held four cricket matches here and this was the first time they played night cricket in Sabina Park and it was phenomenal. Now that we have seen how well that sort of event worked, we can try to bring in more events like that.

There’s definitely so much potential in areas such medical tourism, marijuana tourism, sports tourism, business tourism and heritage tourism. Is the JTB involved just in the marketing the finished product or in the development of these products as well?

I hesitate to say that we are involved in the direct development of it. We are involved to the extent that we want to use these events to market Jamaica. We help assist with the development of it in that we are a sponsor. This was the case with CPL. We did not organize the event but we helped to sponsor it so that it can be used in the future. One of the things that we discussed is that given enough time, JTB is likely to work with some American tour operators, for example, to bring in supporters and cricket lovers from pockets that we know love crickets within the United States. We know that New York is our single largest tourism market for a number of reasons. But in addition to that, it is our largest market for cricket lovers as well; this is the result of the West Indian diaspora. In addition to the West Indian diaspora, there are the Indians, Pakistanis, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans and more all living in New York. Before we were going to host the World Cup in 2007, I was here as the director. During that time, when we were looking at who would potentially come to watch World Cup cricket here in Jamaica, we found out something interesting, that is that the most popular sport in Silicon Valley was cricket. This is because of the Indian population living there. There is another big pocket of cricket loving people in Texas. Dell is headquartered there, which may explain a bit of that.

According to JTB’s website, growing competition, a sluggish global economy and the changing demands of travelers underscored the need for Jamaica to forge strategic partnerships for the continued growth of the industry. As such, the Board’s most recent theme is the “Power of Partnerships.” Who have you been partnering with and how successful have these partnerships been?

Well first, in terms of strategic partnerships, you should take into account, emerging markets. In other words, we have been diversifying our source markets even further.

A major partner that has grown over the past few years has been TUI, which is the world’s largest tour operator. They are a vertically integrated operator so they now have one of their hotel brands here, Sensatori in Negril. TUI is bringing in six flights a week from the United Kingdom. They fly here more frequently, per week, than Virgin Atlantic or British Airways.

TUI, which was Thompson in the UK and a German company just merged. It is now the TUI group, which is headquartered in Germany. But it is TUI UK that has brought in six flights a week from England. They will begin bringing in a flight from Dublin, Ireland next year. They are one of two companies that bring flights in from Scandinavia. But, the relationship with TUI over the last few years is one of the most significant partnerships.

That partnership started to evolve during the London 2012 Olympics. We had a Jamaica house there in London. TUI had been bringing in one or two flights a week but they also acquired these Dreamliners and had to fly them somewhere. Through discussions, Jamaica became one of their strategic destinations for growth. That TUI relationship has really blossomed over the last few years.

Sunwing out of Canada, which is a private company and interestingly owned roughly 49% by TUI, also comes in with a lot of flights. They are also vertically integrated and have Blue Diamond resorts, which owns the Royalton. They just demolished Grand Lido and are building a 500+ room hotel in its place.

Mr. Pennicook, your professional career spans over 32 years, all of which have been spent in the hotel, travel and tourism industry. As the JTB’s Director of Tourism, what is your five-year vision for Jamaica’s tourism sector?

I see us adding to the accommodation sector a decent number of rooms over the next five years. We will certainly fill those rooms by virtue of promoting Jamaica even more and getting more airlift to come in. I see marginal growth in the attractions sector. I certainly see growth in the heritage or culture sector. Both of those things will benefit the general economy. If we are seeing growth in terms of hotel rooms and visitor arrivals, that will result in increased employment and increased benefits that will trickle down through the entire economy.

I am asked from time to time to speak to students or other groups about the benefits of tourism and the best way I have found to describe it is that this is  an island and  we are tourism dependent. We are no longer in the heady days of bauxite. It is the BPOs of this world and the agricultural sector and tourism that will drive this economy now. In the case of tourism, it is the leading foreign exchange earner. What I tell the students is not to just see tourism as some foreigners coming into to enjoy the place. The foreign exchange that they bring  is critical to the economy because that foreign exchange pays for the oil that makes JPS turn on the lights. That foreign exchange pays for the drugs that are in the hospitals so we can treat the sick. When you start to look at it like that, you realize that tourism is not only important because it provides a few jobs in hotels or for  taxi drivers. It is a very important segment of the economy because it helps to make so many other things work.

Harvard Business Review’s readers include many of the world’s most influential business and political figures. Mr. Pennicook, what message would you like to leave them about Jamaica and the Jamaica Tourist Board?

We are working towards Vision 2030. We want to make Jamaica the finest place to live, to work, and to raise families. And, in all seriousness, we are on our way to achieving that.

As far as Jamaica Tourism Board is concerned, we take this work very seriously. We do not just do this for the pure glitz and glamour of promoting our destination. We truly realize that we are playing a very important role in the overall development of this country.