KINGSTON, Jamaica – Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, has been named the Caribbean Tourism Minister for 2017. The award recognizes his decades of service to the development of Tourism and phenomenal growth in the sector last year.
Minister Bartlett received the award from Caribbean Journal, one of the largest websites that covers Caribbean travel.
In receiving the award on Saturday February 24, 2018, Minister Bartlett highlighted that “We have been driving the supplies side of the economic equation. On the demand side we have done very well by bringing over 4.3 million visitors last year and are working to increase that figure to 5 million by 2019”. He added that “My emphasis is on retaining the earnings of tourism in Jamaica so we set the five pillars for growth supported by five networks – gastronomy, sports and entertainment, shopping, knowledge and agriculture – and central to it is the building and strengthening of our human capital.”
Minister Bartlett emphasized that it is the people of Jamaica who are going to make tourism stronger and successful so they must be empowered not just with technical skills and creativity but they must also have capital because there is need for capital, energy and talent to converge seamlessly to create the products that we sell to our visitors. “That is why we put $J1 Billion dollars in the Exim Bank to lend to Small and Medium Tourism Enterprises at a low of 4.5 million and a high of 25 million at 5% with a payback period of 5 years” He added.
The heads of agencies and technocrats within the Ministry of Tourism, were also congratulated by Minister Bartlett for their hard work and commitment to service which has helped to achieve growth in the sector in an unprecedented way.
Last year was a signature year for growth in tourism with 4.3 million visitors coming to Jamaica and $3Billion in foreign exchange earnings. This meant that nearly 500,000 more visitors came to Jamaica in a single year, which has never happened anywhere in this part of the Anglophobe Caribbean. Already, growth figures for the end of last month show that for the period of January 1 – 28, 2018, stopover arrivals totaled 172,380, up 6.7% over 2017.
