Jamaica has facilitated more than US$4.2 billion in hotel investments through JAMPRO, but roughly 10 per cent of the pipeline remains delayed, including a Marriott-branded property in Trelawny.
These projects – facilitated in the fiscal year that ended in March – are expected to deliver 8,943 new hotel rooms and create an estimated 25,705 jobs, according to Government of Jamaica filings this month to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The investments are part of a broader effort to rebuild a sector disrupted by Hurricane Melissa last October.
“Jamaica was severely impacted by Hurricane Melissa, which resulted in approximately 6,200 rooms out of circulation at the end of 2025,” stated the filings, adding that the storm damaged major hotels across the main resort areas, including Montego Bay, Negril, Ocho Rios, and the south coast.
JAMPRO, the Government’s investment promotion agency, facilitated 13 major hotel projects in the most recent fiscal year. The filing noted that “figures are calculated based on the data provided as some information was undisclosed at the time of reporting”.
The pipeline is anchored by a handful of large-scale developments. They include Harmony Cove, a US$1 billion integrated resort in Trelawny with a planned 1,600 rooms that has been in various stages of planning for more than a decade. That project has received “provisional approval granted to begin ground works, and some infrastructure works have begun,” the filings indicated. Moon Palace Phase 2, valued at US$700 million with 1,350 rooms, is “currently going through approval process” with “resort design and building plans” not yet finalised. Grand Palladium Phase II, a US$569 million, 948-room expansion in Hanover, is also undergoing government approvals as is a US$200 million Viva Wyndham Resorts investment targeting 1,000 rooms.
However, the filing discloses delays on four developments. They include the 850-room Karisma Hotel Group Sugarcane Bay project at US$216 million, “delayed indefinitely as the Karisma Group are trying to sell the subdivided lots to other hotel brands”. The 1,200-room Amaterra Resort “branded by Marriott” in Trelawny was signed in 2019 but is still “finalising financing”. The 180-room Grand Hotel Excelsior is awaiting a new “timeline to be communicated”, and the 800-room Jewel Montego Bay was “paused for discussions”.
The Trelawny Marriott is separate from the Montego Bay property disclosed last week when Marriott International and Catalonia Hotels & Resorts announced a 522-room all-inclusive resort expected to open in 2028.
Total visitors topped 1.0 million for the first quarter of 2026 or 17 per cent less than a year earlier.
In 2025, total visitor expenditure decreased by 5.6 per cent to US$4.0 billion, down from US$4.3 billion in 2024. “This decrease was primarily attributable to the impact of Hurricane Melissa in October 2025,” the filing stated, adding that the average expenditure per person per night remained flat at US$192.
Employment in the hotel sector fell 18 per cent year on year, with roughly 36,000 persons directly employed in December 2025. That figure remained “30 per cent below the number of persons employed at the end of 2019 before the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report stated.
business@gleanerjm.com
