The history of Amstar in Jamaica

THE AMSTAR story began more than 30 years ago with a company called Apple Vacations. This sister company has been sending visitors to Jamaica since the early ’80s. They had an office in Jamaica that handled all their transfers, tours, and customer issues. Their representatives in Jamaica were well known as simply Apple Reps.

On October 28, 2009, Amstar DMC Jamaica Limited took over the operation of all in-destination services for Apple Vacations. The new team, led by Joybelle Wint, started operations at 28 Queens Drive with a staff complement of about 25 team members, most of whom worked previously for Apple Vacations.

Amstar’s growth has been constant, and within the first year the staff complement almost doubled with the introduction of a dedicated meetings and events team and the handling of additional accounts out of Europe.

Amstar soon outgrew its existing offices, and in August of 2011, relocated to new offices at Providence Drive in Ironshore. We have been fortunate that as we continued to grow we have able to expand within the existing office complex.

In April of 2013, Amstar welcomed a new major account, Travel Impressions, and this was shortly followed by in August of 2013. This cemented Amstar’s position as one of the largest destination management companies in Jamaica.

In May of 2018, the Apple Leisure Group, which is Amstar’s parent company, merged with the Mark Travel Corporation. This brought a new phase of expansion as we now acquired new major tour operator accounts consisting of Funjet Vacations, United Vacations, and Southwest Vacation.

Amstar Jamaica is projected in 2019 to move over 250,000 passengers who arrive in Jamaica to hotels across the island. We are also one of the top providers of business to all the major tour providers across the island. Our dedicated meetings and incentives team handles more than 10,000 passengers per year in various resorts. Amstar operates as the tour desk concessionaire in all AMResorts operating in Jamaica. This includes Secrets Resorts, Sunscape Resorts, Breathless Resort, and Zoetry.

Amstar is clearly a major driver of the tourism industry in Jamaica, with a full-time staff complement of 140 ALL JAMAICAN team members.