Jamaica’s tourism arrivals were running 31.4% below 2025 levels through February 2026, with total visitors falling to 321,395 from 468,235 in the same window, according to Jamaica Tourist Board figures cited in NCB Capital Markets’ analysis of the post-Melissa numbers. That was the scale of the hit Hurricane Melissa dealt the island’s tourism industry after making landfall in October 2025.
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January arrivals alone fell 35.5% year over year and February fell 27.1%, with the United States market down 37.5% and Canada down 29.6% over the same window, per the same JTB figures. Cruise arrivals held up better, contracting just 5.9% to 161,157 passengers. Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett reported just over one million total arrivals for the first quarter of 2026, an 18% year-over-year decline, though the sector still generated roughly $956 million in receipts.
That gap has been closing fast. By late August 2026, arrivals were running just 17% below the same months of 2025, with earnings down 18%, according to government tourism figures reported by Rio Times Online. Jamaica had already welcomed more than 1.66 million visitors through May, including over 1 million stopover arrivals, even with only 70% of the island’s tourism inventory available at that point.
Hotel capacity has been the main constraint easing in real time. Seventy-two percent of room inventory was back online by mid-December 2025, according to the Jamaica Information Service, climbing to 75% by early May 2026 as roughly 80,000 hotel workers returned to their jobs. Full inventory of about 33,000 rooms isn’t expected until the first quarter of 2027. Half Moon’s Eclipse property in Montego Bay reopened April 2 with more than 200 rooms added back to the count. “The importance of the sector’s recovery after [Hurricane Melissa] is one key word, jobs,” Bartlett said at the reopening.
Airlift is filling in behind the hotel comeback. New routes into Montego Bay launched or announced for 2026 include Wingo’s Medellín service starting in June, LIAT Air from Guadeloupe in July, Breeze Airways from Tampa for winter season, and Porter Airlines connecting Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa by late November, per the same recovery reporting.
Key Points
- Arrivals ran 31.4% below 2025 levels through February 2026, narrowing to 17% below by late August.
- Hotel room inventory climbed from 72% back online in December 2025 to 75% by May 2026.
- Full room capacity isn’t expected until the first quarter of 2027.
Jamaica took in 3.7 million visitors and $4.09 billion in tourism revenue in 2025 before the storm hit, the baseline against which every one of these monthly comparisons is still being measured.
