Jamaica Will Have a New and Spacious Convention Center and more hotel rooms

BancoMex will finance the construction of a new convention center in Jamaica, large enough to host the region´s largest meetings, such as the annual CHA Marketplace. Jamaica´s President P.J. Patterson confirmed Mexico´s president Vicente Fox had assured him BancoMex will back up the costs.

At the same time, the Jamaica Tourist Board divulge that more than 12,000 new hotel rooms will be added to the island´s room inventory over the next eight years, in particular 5,000 new units in the next two years from Spanish hotel developers RIU, Grupo Panero, Iberostar and AMResorts.

Jamaica shone during CHA Marketplace last week at Half Moon Montego Bay, a gathering that turned into one of the most memorable travel and tourism trade events in the region. Held every year in January, Caribbean Marketplace sets the tone for travel packaging in the Caribbean and is arguably the region´s most important tourism marketing event of the year.

The event attracted tourism suppliers from 36 Caribbean destinations to meet with qualified international buyers -- wholesalers, incentive buyers, meeting planners, group buyers and dive shop owners -- this year´s meeting brought together more than 1.543 delegates, compared to 1.296 last year.

CHA top executive, Alex Sanguenetti, highlighted there was an increase in business exchange as shown by the 4.050 meetings scheduled, some 300 more than the 3.764 of last January.