Jamaica is planning to restart travel agent fam trips to the destination from April next year.
Pre-pandemic, the Jamaica Tourist Board hosted around 10 fam trips a year for the UK trade, taking around 100 agents to the destination.
District sales manager Torrance Lewis said he was hopeful there would be at least 10 if not more educationals on offer to UK agents in 2022.
He said: “We’ve always been the leader in fam trips. We want to start doing them again and we have been consulting with airlines.”
He admitted the decision by the Foreign Office to advise against all but essential travel to Jamaica at the end of August had delayed a return to fam trips but said the recent removal of this advice and the amber list meant the destination could now plan for trips to take place.
“Right now agents are busy so we are delaying the fam trips until quarter two of next year,” added Lewis, who said airlift to Jamaica was returning to pre-pandemic levels this winter and there were hopes of extra flights being added in 2022.
The tourist board hopes to reveal fam trip dates by the end of this year, with the aim of taking 100 or more agents to visit the destination.
“It’s the best way of creating confidence with agents. There is still a lot of uncertainty,” added Lewis. “By taking them and showing them first hand that the holiday is just as it was previously will really help and we want to reward agents.”
Jamaica is already offering agents double rewards of £10 per booking, up from the normal £5 incentive that it put in place as part of its Jamaica Rewards programme during the pandemic, until the end of the year.
Agents are encouraged to log bookings they make with the tourist board as part of its “Sell it & See it” initiative, which will then help them to qualify for a place on a fam trip.