French focus planned by Jersey tourism bosses

Latest figures showed 392,500 people had visited Jersey in the year up to September - down by 79,300 compared to the same period in 2024

Bringing French visitors over will be a "big focus" for Jersey's tourism board next year, its boss has said.

Tricia Warwick, chief executive of Visit Jersey, said there had been a drop in the number of tourists from the neighbouring country during 2025.

Her comments came as the latest figures for all tourists for the year up to September showed 392,500 people had visited the island - 79,300 fewer than the same period in 2024.

Ms Warwick said delays in the ferry contract transition from Condor to DFDS had created issues but DFDS said the "short mobilisation period" between the contract being signed and operations commencing had been unavoidable.

"I think the challenge was not being on sale as early as we wanted to be due to the delays with the negotiations," Ms Warwick said.

"We did lose business by ferry, particularly from France, that we didn't recover.

"So there's a big focus next year on France and building back that business."

A DFDS spokesperson said: "DFDS's agreement to operate Jersey's ferry services with the Government of Jersey was signed on 31 December 2024, with operations commencing on 28 March.

"Due to the short mobilisation period, ferry tickets could not be placed on sale as early as the industry would normally expect, which inevitably influenced forward bookings, including those referenced by Visit Jersey."

The spokesperson said DFDS moved "at pace" once the agreement had been confirmed with the ports of Portsmouth, Poole, St Malo and Jersey publishing timetables on 23 January which had enabled bookings to open as quickly as possible.

The ferry firm had subsequently published its 2026 timetables at the beginning of October which had provided a longer booking window, they added.

Exit survey

According to the latest figures for all tourists to the island, 53,300 people visited Jersey in September, down by 10,900 compared to the same month in 2024.

The figures showed there were 31,300 overnight leisure visits, down by 6,700, in September, and the average length of stay rose year-on-year from 4.4 nights to 4.7.

Visit Jersey said the year-on-year figures were "not directly comparable" due to its exit survey being refined with a new weighting system.

Ms Warwick said there were positives to look forward to including Jet2 increasing the number of flights it offers to Jersey from 2026.