Jamaica’s hotel sector continues its recovery from Hurricane Melissa, the Category 5 storm that struck the island on October 28, 2025, and the most recent figures reported through September 2026 show meaningful but still incomplete progress for travelers deciding whether and where to book.

Where the numbers stand

As of late September 2026, roughly 70 percent of Jamaica’s hotel room inventory is reported operational, according to tourism officials cited by the Jamaica Gleaner, with the remaining capacity expected to come back online by early 2027. Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett has said the broader recovery in visitor arrivals has moved past 80 percent of pre hurricane levels, and that a phased reopening plan has returned roughly 80,000 tourism jobs to the sector since the storm. Bartlett has framed the recovery in direct economic terms, noting that tourism contributes close to 30 percent of Jamaica’s GDP and employs roughly one in five workers on the island, which is why the pace of hotel reopenings carries weight well beyond the properties themselves.

Jamaica’s advisory status adds useful context to these figures. The U.S. State Department has held Jamaica at Level 2, “exercise increased caution,” since January 2026, citing crime, health and natural disaster risk rather than a hurricane specific warning. That is a lower advisory level than the period immediately after Hurricane Melissa’s landfall, and it sits alongside the hotel recovery figures as a separate but related signal for anyone weighing a trip to the island this winter.

Which resorts have reopened

Royalton Blue Waters and Royalton Hideaway Blue Waters reopened on September 15, 2026, restoring 578 rooms and around 1,200 jobs, after Royalton had earlier pushed back its Negril area properties, Royalton Negril, Royalton Hideaway Negril and Grand Lido Negril, to reopen following Jamaica’s Emancipation and Independence holidays in late August 2026, citing the need for thorough safety assessments before welcoming guests back. Princess Hotels Jamaica has also confirmed a full reopening, and Half Moon in Montego Bay and Bahia Principe in Runaway Bay, which restored 664 rooms and roughly 800 jobs on its own, are both back in operation. Several other major groups with a presence in Jamaica, including Sandals, RIU and Moon Palace, have resumed normal operations at their Jamaican properties, consistent with this site’s earlier coverage of Sandals’ renovation plans and RIU’s own storm recovery on the island.

What this means if you are booking now

The practical takeaway is that Jamaica is open for travel, but not uniformly, and confirming a specific resort’s operational status directly before booking still matters more here than it would for a destination further from last year’s storm track. The remaining 30 percent of room inventory still being restored is concentrated in specific properties and corridors rather than spread evenly across the island, and the gap between “Jamaica has reopened” as a headline and a specific resort’s actual status can be wide enough to affect a real trip. For travelers specifically weighing Jamaica against other destinations right now, our Montego Bay and Ocho Rios guide and our broader look at reading official travel advisories before booking are both worth reading alongside this update, since advisory levels and hotel operational status move on separate timelines and both deserve a direct check close to departure.

Jamaica’s tourism tax changes, covered separately in our piece on the upcoming tourism tax increase, are unrelated to the hurricane recovery but will affect the same travelers planning Jamaica trips over the next year, and both pieces of information are worth having before finalizing a booking on the island.

How this was confirmed

These figures come from Jamaica Gleaner reporting on government recovery briefings, supplemented by trade coverage from PAX News, Hotel Online and the Caribbean Council tracking individual hotel reopening announcements through 2026. Figures describing national recovery percentages are the tourism ministry’s own reporting rather than this site’s independent measurement, and resort specific reopening dates can and have moved before, as Royalton’s own revised timeline for its Negril properties shows. Anyone booking a specific Jamaican resort for travel in the next few months should confirm its current operational status directly with the property or a travel agent close to the booking date, rather than relying on any single recovery figure as a guarantee that a particular hotel is open and fully staffed.