Updated

Jamaica's government is reporting a record year for its tourism industry, with last year's arrivals and earnings surpassing numbers set the previous year.

Tourism Minister Wykeham McNeill says the island attracted 3.5 million visitors in 2014, generating gross foreign exchange earnings of $2.2 billion. That's an increase of nearly 6 percent over the previous financial record in 2013.

Last year, some 1.4 million tourists arrived in Jamaica on cruise ships, an increase of 12 percent over 2013.

In a Sunday statement, the government said all of Jamaica's main cruise ports reported increases in arrivals, led by a nearly 20 percent boost at a port opened in 2011 in the north coast town of Falmouth.