Tourism Minister for Jamaica, Edmund Bartlett has called for a full debate at the United Nations and relevant agencies on the challenges to tourism recovery, with a focus on resilience-building through funding for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) that are highly tourism-dependent but weakly resourced.
He noted that the issue of supply chain disruptions in terms of goods and services as well as human capital, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, had made the prospects of an equitable recovery challenging.
Bartlett was delivering his keynote address at the United Nations General Assembly Roundtable on May 4 under the theme “For People: Leaving No One Behind Through Inclusive Tourism.” It was part of the General Assembly’s High-level Thematic Debate on “Putting Sustainable and Resilient Tourism at the Heart of an Inclusive Recovery” held at the UN Headquarters, New York.
The debate was organised in collaboration with the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism and its agencies are on a mission to enhance and transform the country’s tourism product, while ensuring that the benefits which flow from the tourism sector are increased for all its citizens.
To this end it has implemented policies and strategies that will provide further momentum for tourism as the engine of growth for the Jamaican economy. The ministry remains committed to ensuring that the tourism sector makes the fullest contribution possible to Jamaica’s economic development given its tremendous earning potential.
At the ministry, they are leading the charge to strengthen the linkages between tourism and other sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, and entertainment, and in so doing encourage every Jamaican to play their part in improving the country’s tourism product, sustaining investment, and modernizing and diversifying the sector to foster growth and job creation for fellow Jamaicans. The Ministry sees this as critical to Jamaica’s survival and success and has undertaken this process through an inclusive approach, which is driven by the Resort Boards, through wide-scale consultation.
Recognising that a collaborative effort and a committed partnership between the public and private sectors will be needed to achieve set targets, central to the ministry’s plans is maintaining and nurturing its relationship with all key stakeholders. In so doing, it is believed that with the Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism Development as a guide and the National Development Plan – Vision 2030 as a benchmark – the ministry’s goals are achievable for the benefit of all Jamaicans.
