Purkiss challenges Bartlett on Jamaica’s slide in cruise arrivals

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition Spokesperson on Tourism and Linkages Andrea Purkiss has criticised Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, saying he has been “completely silent” about what she described as a serious fall-off in cruise shipping. Purkiss said the sector has contracted by more than 28 per cent since 2019, while cruise travel globally is expanding.

Purkiss, who represents Hanover Eastern in Parliament, raised the issue on Tuesday during her first Sectoral Debate presentation in the House of Representatives. She said Bartlett has publicly claimed that the cruise sector “lives up to expectations”, but argued that the figures tell a different story. “But the only expectation that has been met is his expectation that nobody would check his math,” she said.

According to Purkiss, Jamaica received 1,544,233 cruise passengers in 2019, before the Covid pandemic. By the close of 2025, she said, the country had recorded only 1,106,361 cruise passengers. She told Parliament that this represented a 28.4 per cent drop when compared with seven years earlier.

She said the shortfall amounted to almost 438,000 passengers no longer arriving at Jamaican ports. Purkiss linked that gap to fewer visitors taking taxis, buying local craft and visiting attractions.

The Opposition spokesperson said the Government’s failure to win back cruise market share has deprived tourism interests of more than three million passenger opportunities. Using a US$10 spend for each guest, she estimated that the economy would have missed out on US$30 million, or J$4.5 billion.

Purkiss said her criticism of Bartlett was not unreasonable. She asked whether the international cruise industry had failed to recover from Covid, then answered that “The answer is a resounding no”.

She pointed to global cruise passenger volume of 37.2 million, describing it as a record high and 25.2 per cent above the 2019 level. Purkiss also said the Caribbean accounts for 44 per cent of worldwide cruise traffic, while nearby destinations are benefiting from that growth.

She told the House that Antigua and Barbuda has increased by 9.9 per cent after constructing a new terminal, Barbados is posting record numbers, Cozumel in Mexico is receiving 4.73 million visitors annually, and The Bahamas has grown by 100 per cent.