As Jamaica seeks to unlock the vast potential of the Latin American (LATAM) visitor market, Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, has emphasised the importance of multi-destination tourism and 'co-petition' to this initiative.
NORSE Atlantic Airways started offering direct service between Jamaica and the United Kingdom on Thursday.
With the Jamaican tourism sector continuing on its robust growth trajectory for 2023, Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett, has revealed that as of May 10, the island has welcomed just over 1.5 million total visitors, with provisional gross earnings exceeding US$1.6 billion for the period.
Ziggy and Cedella Marley have joined the fight with the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement to keep Bob Marley beach open to the public.
Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett is appealing to stakeholders to focus on growing the sector in order to guarantee that all players generally, can benefit from the industry, and also, to temper unrealistic expectations.
The Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Festival makes its much-anticipated return to its original venue in the cool hills of St Andrew on March 25.
Spanish hoteliers operating in Jamaica have committed to constructing at least 2,000 new residential units for local hotel workers and their immediate families.
BUOYED by a rebound in tourist arrivals, transport and logistics company Knutsford Express has seen a return to profitability in the second quarter (Q2) of financial year (FY) 2022/23, according to an unaudited financial statement shared on the Jamaica Stock Exchange website.
THE Ministry of Tourism, through its Tourism Linkages Network (TLN), is relaunching its 'Top Events campaign', which is designed to increase attendance by visitors to events and activities islandwide.
The impending inaugural visit next month by the world's largest cruise ship, the "Wonder of the Seas," has heightened local stakeholders' optimism about the prospect of a positive 2022/23 winter tourist season, especially for cruise shipping.
Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, says the island had been able to secure an estimated 26,000 more airline seats to Jamaica this winter.
MONTEGO BAY, St James — The long-established relationship between Jamaica and Canada, the island’s second largest tourism market, has been strengthened with an agreement to enter a new era of cooperation and collaboration in tourism, resilience and sustainability.
On Thursday, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett and his Canadian counterpart, Randy Boissonnault, agreed on a memorandum of understanding (MOU) when they met on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Boissonnault is Canada’s first full-fledged Minister of Tourism but also holds the portfolio of Associate Minister of Finance. Two other key stakeholders in the Parliament Hill meeting were Jamaica’s High Commissioner to Canada, Sharon Miller and Canadian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maninder Sidhu.
The two ministers agreed on an MOU to share best practices and build capacity in training and human capital development, marketing, investment and the expansion of tourism resilience and sustainability programmes and projects.
Although tourism is Canada’s second largest export and growing, Minister Boissonnault said the industry was never seen as being critical. However, with a changing paradigm, it was now being pursued with new insights and a commitment made to funding and support for a meaningful MOU, recognising the key role that Jamaica and Canada can play in strengthening global tourism.
The renewed partnership has been welcomed by Bartlett who said Minister Boissonnault was a supporter of the new tourism that has been emerging since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and being the first full-fledged tourism minister for his country was an indication of how important tourism was now being seen.
Minister Bartlett elaborated on the MOU, stating that it will focus heavily on building the capacity of tourism workers and stakeholders of the industry “to provide a greater level of service, but more so to be able to pivot and to respond to different challenges and crises that may appear from time to time.”
In a release on Friday, it was revealed that an Employment Charter, being developed to attract and retain tourism workers, has received the backing of the Canadian tourism minister who indicated that he wanted to play an active role in the dialogue relating to the charter leading up to its promulgation at a later date.
“We looked at the wider question of resilience and sustainability, in particular the work of the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC) and Canada will support the Global Tourism Resilience agenda and participate in the Global Tourism Resilience Day activities to take place in February 2023 at the University of the West Indies,” said Minister Bartlett.
Satellite centres of the GTRCMC are to be established at Carlton University in Ottawa, in addition to the one that already exists at George Brown University in Toronto.
The MOU also calls for exchanges to be initiated with Carlton University, George Brown College, and other key technical institutions that are tourism and hospitality oriented.
Minister Bartlett disclosed that Canada and Jamaica will collaborate on a number of initiatives he did not identify but stated that “this was a great encounter.”
Canada and Jamaica have enjoyed a longstanding relationship spanning over 60 years. Canada is also one of the preferred countries for settlement by migrating Jamaicans, with some 350,000 making it their home.
Two home-grown Jamaicans have joined forces to invest US$100 million into the construction of a multipurpose vacation and residential resort that will reshape Jamaica’s tourism capital, Montego Bay in St James.
Citizens of Colombia, Peru and Guyana will not need a visa to visit the United Kingdom for up to six months anymore.