A Study On The Marketing Plan Of Jamaica’s Tourism Industry Towards China’s Outbound Tourist

The thesis surrounds tourism in Jamaica and how through the interplay of mitigating factors such as price,place/location,product and promotion,a marketing plan can be created to attract Chinese Outbound Tourists to the island.The thesis was designed specifically to look at Jamaica’s Tourism Product and its level of brand recognition and attractiveness amongst Chinese outbound tourists with an intended outcome of creating a marketing plan targeting Chinese Outbound Tourists to visit Jamaica.The behavior and consumption habits of potential Chinese Outbound Tourists were examined through the distribution of questionnaires and the findings analyzed and interpreted to come to a definite conclusion.This was supported by literature from leading experts in the field of tourism.The results of the survey were quiet interesting,of a total number of 296 respondents only a small percentage of 17% or 50 of them had any amount of knowledge of Jamaica’s existence.What also became apparent to the author during his daily conversation with Chinese nationals is that some of them were aware of Jamaican products such as the Blue Mountain Peak Coffee;however most of them thought that Jamaica was located on the continent of Africa.The research wasn’t without its challenges,the main of which was the absence of an existing marketing plan geared towards Chinese Outbound Tourists.Due to this limitation,the research was unable to fulfill one of its objectives which were to analyze existing strategies and identify ways to improve on them.The absence of data relating to the travel of Chinese nationals to the island such as age distribution,purpose of travel,period of travel etc.was a major hurdle for the author to overcome.Through the research it was surmised that there is a lot of work to be done by stakeholders in the Jamaica Tourisms Industry in order to capitalize on the booming Chinese tourists market.It also revealed that the presence of brand Jamaica is woefully lacking on Chinese internet and social media platforms.It was determined that through robust online marketing and the formation of linkages with stakeholders in the Chinese Tourism market such as travel agents and other front line contact worker;as well as forming alliance with other countries in the North American and Caribbean region,that Jamaica would have a great chance of achieving and sustaining this target.