‘Most tourism jobs return’ following hurricane Melissa, says minister Bartlett

By Chris Patterson

KINGSTON, Jamaica, (JIS) – As the tourism sector continues to rebound from the impact of hurricane Melissa, minister, Edmund Bartlett, reports that most of the industry’s jobs have returned, signalling the restoration of employment opportunities.

“Those that aren’t … there are stages of that recovery, because all the hotels have kept the skeleton staff… so they really have not let everyone out. [Additionally] there are about 11,000 rooms that are to come back on stream … and if we work at one-to-one, that’s about 11,000 workers that are now to come back,” Bartlett said, in an update on the sector during a ministerial interview with Jamaica Information Service (JIS) chief executive officer, Giovanni Dennis, September 17.

“In the hotels alone, they directly employ approximately 60,000 people and then, of course, the other areas that are aligned with us… the attractions and so on. So, I would say that we had a 30 per cent hit… so pretty close to 15,000/20,000 workers,” he said, highlighting the hurricane’s impact on the sector.

The category five hurricane Melissa made landfall on October 28, 2025, leaving many hotels and attractions at varying levels of destruction. Bartlett said approximately 15,000 hotel rooms were out of service in the aftermath of the hurricane.

“About 6,000 were reopened over the period, and we have 9,000 to go… and at the rate at which we are going, we should make that 9,000 complete by the first quarter of 2027,” he added.

Minister Bartlett informed that the sector has made steady progress as the 2026/27 winter tourist season approaches. The season is officially scheduled to commence on December 15:

“We will start the winter tourist season with just about 80 percent of our capacity; so, the other 20 percent will come on stream between January and March… April of 2027. Currently, our capacity for accommodation, formal accommodation, is 70 percent… and we will get to 80 percent by December. But our actual arrival into the country is running at 80 percent of last year.”

Meanwhile, the tourism minister noted that the accommodation subsector, Airbnb, has been making a significant impact on the tourism industry.

“So, we are really ahead of our room count at the moment. Airbnb has done the filling in, because most of those people have gone to the villas, apartments, and private homes,” minister Bartlett said, while pointing out that the full extent of the reduction in the sector’s fallout will become clearer by the end of the first quarter of 2027.

“You are going to see the growth in terms of the recovery as more hotel rooms come, for example, into the inventory… as more economic activity is generated by tourism. Bear in mind that tourism… is a huge driver of consumption… and at every point of consumption, it’s revenue that is driven. So even the GCT (general consumption tax), which is applied at the various points of consumption, contributes to the increase in revenue overall to the government and recovery.

“So, we can say in tourism that [the ministry] is well positioned to maintain growth, and that growth will definitely be realised,” minister Bartlett, said.