Jamaicas hotel development pipeline reached more than US$4.2 billion in the fiscal year that ended in March, according to Government of Jamaica filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission reported by the Gleaner, with 13 major projects facilitated by JAMPRO expected to deliver 8,943 new rooms and roughly 25,705 jobs.
Hurricane Melissa left its mark on the numbers directly. The filings noted that the storm took approximately 6,200 rooms out of circulation at the end of 2025, damaging major hotels across Montego Bay, Negril, Ocho Rios and the south coast. Total visitor arrivals still topped one million in the first quarter of 2026, but the room-count disruption shows up clearly against the pipelines growth.
Several brand-name projects in the pipeline are running behind schedule. The 850-room Karisma Hotel Group Sugarcane Bay project, valued at US$216 million, is delayed indefinitely while the developer tries to sell subdivided lots to other hotel brands. The 1,200-room Amaterra Resort in Trelawny, signed in 2019 and branded by Marriott, is still finalising financing seven years later. The 800-room Jewel Montego Bay has been paused for discussions, and the 180-room Grand Hotel Excelsior is awaiting a new timeline.
Not everything is stalled. Grand Palladium is pushing ahead with a US$569 million, 948-room expansion in Hanover, and Viva Wyndham Resorts is moving forward on a separate US$200 million, 1,000-room investment, both currently in government approvals. Marriott International and Catalonia Hotels separately announced a new 522-room all-inclusive resort near Montego Bay, expected to open in 2028, distinct from the delayed Trelawny Marriott project.
Read together, the filings describe an industry genuinely expanding in aggregate dollar terms while individual flagship projects, the ones that generate the most attention when announced, quietly slip years behind their original timelines. Both things are true simultaneously, and the US$4.2 billion headline number obscures that gap unless you read past it.
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