Edmund Bartlett, Minister of tourist, has emphasised the need of involving stakeholders of all sizes in the tourist value chain in order to increase the industry’s resilience and sustainability. As a model, Minister Bartlett described a number of efforts being carried out by the Ministry of tourist and its governmental organisations to assist small and medium-sized tourist businesses (SMTEs) while “holding them accountable to sustainable business practises aligned with industry standards.”
The tourism minister remarked, “The essence of tourism as we know it is the small and medium enterprises,” during a panel discussion on the fringes of the Arabian Travel Market with the theme: “Strategic Sustainability Planning – Where Does the Supply Chain Start?” When tourists visit the place, they make up 80% of the experiences and services they receive.
Minister Bartlett also discussed how the Ministry’s strategy and policy direction have been set up to support Jamaican SMTEs.
“We invest a lot of money in educating and building the skills of little players so they can, first, be more inventive and creative, and second, have financial resources. As a result, we opened a JM$1 billion window for financing to small and medium-sized businesses through the Jamaican EXIM bank, according to the minister of tourism.
The Ministry of Tourism was also commended for using technology as a key instrument in its efforts to strengthen the industry’s resilience and viability and link its smaller participants to its more established businesses.
Minister Bartlett emphasised the accomplishment of the Agri-Linkages Exchange (ALEX) project of the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), and he continued: “We established a platform called ALEX which connects the small farmers of 1 to 5 acres in deep-rural regions to purveyors and procurement officers in the hotels all across Jamaica. They can thus figure out costs and delivery schedules on their iPhones so that vegetables may be delivered straight from the farm gate to the hotel.
Minister Bartlett reiterated his request for the creation of a global tourist resilience fund and emphasised the need of all tourism stakeholders working together to safeguard the environment.
“Net zero cannot be our goal in the travel industry; net positive must. At COP 28, tourism must now assert that it has a strategy to reduce impact, adapt, and facilitate recovery. Therefore, a funding proposal is crucial, and there is a need for the creation of a tourism resilience fund that is voluntarily funded by each traveller, Minister Bartlett noted.
For the sixteenth consecutive year, Jamaica has been voted the Caribbean’s Leading Destination for 2022 by the World Travel Awards. Additionally, Jamaica was recognised as the Caribbean’s Leading Nature Destination 2022, Caribbean’s Leading Tourist Board 2022, and Caribbean’s Leading Cruise Destination 2022.
Source: breakingtravelnews