Visitors to the island can feel very confident that the Jamaica Cares Programme is in place to protect them, says Donovan White, director of tourism at the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB).
“Our protocols were the first to receive World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) ‘Safe Travels’ recognition that allowed us to safely reopen the destination last June. The Jamaica resilient corridors, which cover more than 85 per cent of Jamaica’s tourism product and include less than one per cent of our population, have recorded a COVID-19 infection rate of under one per cent. In fact, the actual rate is point four of a percentage [point],” he said. He was speaking, recently, at the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s virtual destination briefing.
Though the United States Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a travel advisory for Jamaica, White is confident that with its resilient corridors and COVID-19 protocols in place, Jamaica is on the right path to recovery.
“While Jamaica is one of the 77 countries around the world, including many of our Caribbean neighbours, to have received the [CDC’s] level four designation, we remain confident that our resilient corridors and protocols will continue to take us on the right path to recovery. The health and safety of every Jamaican and every visitor to Jamaica remains our top priority. And we expect the level four designation will be short in its duration,” White stated.
He added that Jamaica’s tourism sector is “open for business and continues to welcome visitors safely” as the country undertakes a COVID-19 vaccination drive among the 170,000 tourism workers and their families across the island.
“One of the ways we will clearly keep both our visitors and tourism workers safe is through vaccinations. We have established a new tourism vaccination task force that aims to facilitate the administration of COVID-19 vaccinations to all tourism workers across the island,” he said.
“This island-wide vaccination programme will aid in our recovery efforts of the sector and, by extension, Jamaica,” White added.
