Tourism Minister of Jamaica - Edmund Bartlett Credit: Rudolph Brown

WESTERN BUREAU:

Jamaica seems set to equal its 2019 tourist arrival figures, with June and July giving strong indications of what Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett has tagged as a “strong recovery”.

June 2022 has seen 224,721 stopover visitors to the island, surpassing June 2019, which had registered 222,448 visitors, Bartlett told The Gleaner Saturday, hours after returning to the island from the Sustainable Coastal and Marine Tourism event in Lisbon, Portugal.

This is the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic closed the country’s borders, decimating arrival numbers, that any month has exceeded 2019 numbers.

Tourism Minister Hon. Edmund Bartlett and Kenya’s Minister of Tourism, Hon. Najib Balala at the 2022 UN Ocean Conference: Sustainable Coastal and Marine Tourism Launch Event held today (June 29) in Lisbon, Portugal.

KINGSTON, Jamaica; June 29, 2022: Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett has given his support to the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy’s (Ocean Panel) vision of accomplishing a viable tourism economy in less than 10 years.

He was giving the keynote address at the 2022 UN Ocean Conference: Sustainable Coastal and Marine Tourism Launch Event in Lisbon, Portugal, today (June 29).  The Ocean Conference is being held under the theme “Scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of Goal 14: Stocktaking, partnerships and solutions”.

During his address, Minister Bartlett pointed out that “Jamaica fully endorses the goal of the Ocean Panel to achieve a sustainable tourism economy by 2030.”

In reiterating his support, Mr. Bartlett stressed that “the health and sustainability of our oceans are critical to the survival of the tourism industry”, adding that “the role of healthy marine and coastal systems in promoting sustainable tourism is especially worthy of recognition.”

Mandeville, Jamaica. December 23, 2021.   The announcement of Minister of Tourism, The Honourable Edmund Bartlett, on December 3, 2021 at the 24th session of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) General Assembly in Madrid, Spain, of his intention to invest and promote Village Tourism in Jamaica is welcomed by all Community Tourism partners.   Delegates who approved the Redesigning Tourism for the Future Task Force agreed that this was a big victory for World Tourism.

BRAND Jamaica is known for being the home of the fastest man and the fastest woman on planet earth, Usain Bolt and Elaine Thompson-Herah, Reggae, Bob Marley and its first National Hero, Marcus Mosiah Garvey.  Jamaica is also the HOME OF COMMUNITY TOURISM, having given it birth some 47 years ago and been so branded in 1994 by Dr. Louis D’Amore, founder, International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT).  The title has since grown to include the Caribbean Region.  Community Tourism has in turn given birth to Villages as Businesses, a world recognized and acclaimed programme created in Jamaica and implemented and exported locally, regionally and internationally with a focus on community economic tourism.

The Tourism Minister’s announcement is in fact an award-winning decision based on the following truth: it is endorsing the passion, philosophy and commitment of Diana McIntyre-Pike, tourism pioneer, which has earned her and Villages as Businesses some 25 awards spanning 40 years.