- Hospitality sector given a boost with news that hotels could be fully booked in July and August for first time in ten years
- Jersey Hospitality Association say Island Games has had a knock-on effect to numbers
- Ports of Jersey expecting busiest day at Airport in 14 years in first week of July
- Can Jersey still compete as a tourism destination?
JERSEY’S hotels could be fully booked for the whole of July and August for the first time in more than ten years, the head of the Island’s Hospitality Association has said.
This week thousands of athletes, team managers and backroom staff from 23 islands are descending on Jersey for the start of the NatWest Island Games.
With the competitors’ families and friends, spectators and non-Games tourists also coming, the majority of the Island’s hotels are at capacity for the entire week of the competition.
And according to Ian Barnes, the president of the Jersey Hospitality Association, due a combination of the knock-on effect of the Games, a rise in UK residents taking holidays after the recession, a surge in advanced bookings and the successful service from easyJet, for the first time in more than a decade all of the Island’s 11,000 beds could be full for all of the two core summer months.
Mr Barnes’ comments follow a strong start to the year for the tourism industry, with 13 per cent more holidaymakers coming to the Island in the first four months of the year than in the same period last year.
And the Ports of Jersey announced that they are expecting the busiest day at the Airport in 14 years, when up to 7,000 passengers are expected to pass through the terminal at the end of the Games on 4 July.
Speaking about the coming months, Mr Barnes said that he expects this year’s July and August to be the best since the late 1990s when there were 24,000 rooms in the Island.
‘For as long as I have been involved in the industry we have only ever been 70 per cent full, so we have only been at three quarters of our capacity for the last ten years,’ he said.
‘We knew that this year was looking good as the number of forward bookings has been excellent. The operators realised that we were going to be full in early July so they have been persuading people to book away from the Island Games. Those people who have been trying to visit last minute have not been able to get a room, but they have been pushed into July and August.
‘Having this boost at the start of July means that we are going to have a busy extended period because we still have all of the tourists that come in the school holidays. I am hopeful that we will be 100 per cent full for all of July and August, which means we could have 11,000 rooms occupied for the two key months.’
And Mr Barnes says that the impact of the NatWest Island Games on the tourist industry could be seen for years to come.
‘We have 4,000 people coming to Jersey who would not be coming otherwise. When they see what the Island has to offer they may well come back with their families and a lot will tell their friends.
David Seymour, the managing director of the Seymour Hotels Group, which includes the Merton, the Pomme d’Or and Greenhills, was equally as positive about the coming months.
‘We are very pleased with the way things are going,’ he said.
‘I think that the Island can expect to have higher occupancies this year than the last couple of years, which has been significantly pushed up by the Island Games.’
