Tui Travel chief executive Peter Long said Jamaica will be a key part of the company’s long-haul strategy as he opened its new Sensatori resort in Negril.
Long visited the Caribbean destination this week with UK managing director Dave Burling and deputy chief executive Johan lundgren to open the property, operated in partnership with Karisma Hotels.
He said Tui had seen the re-emergence of the destination with a 60% increase in passenger numbers this year.
Long met prime minister Portia Simpson-Miller during the visit.
He said: “The message I gave the prime minister was that we’re intent in building our long-haul programme and we have a clear ambition to be the number one long-haul operator across Europe – we want Jamaica to be a key part of that strategy.”
Long also revealed plans to expand the new hotel. He said: “We love Sensatori Jamaica but we’d like it to be bigger so we’ll be talking with our partner Karisma about how we can have more rooms.
“We have a big fan club of guests who look for the next Sensatori so we’re building a huge amount of loyalty.”
He added: “In 2007 when I first met Johan, we had a vision to say we want to give customers great holidays they can only book through us.
“We focused on that during challenging times – today this makes us feel really proud. Sensatori is one of our very successful concepts.”
Tui will fly six times a week to Jamaica next summer and eight times a week in winter, all on the Boeing 787. The Thomson Dream will be based at Montego Bay from winter 2014.