JA to Host Tourism Outlook Seminar

The Ministry of Tourism, in collaboration with the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), will be hosting the third annual Tourism Outlook Seminar, February 2-3, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Montego Bay, St. James.
Dubbed ‘Challenges, Changes & Opportunities in Tourism: Rising Above the Current Global Economic Landscape’, the two-day event will bring together a wide variety of local and international presenters on current and future tourism issues.
“This is an appropriate theme, as we look at the last year of tourism, the projections which were made by the UNWTO, the performance of the Caribbean region and the performance of Jamaica,” Deputy Director of Tourism, David Shields, told JIS News.
He added that the seminar was an avenue for key stakeholders in the tourism industry, across the world, to identify opportunities that exist within the tourism environment, and look at best practices, to see how Jamaica can benchmark some of its own performance indicators against them.
The Tourism Outlook Seminar will also be used as the basis to finding solutions to current problems, and create new and successful strategies for making tourism work, in the short and medium-term future.
Over the two days, the seminar will feature presentations and panel discussions on issues such as: world tourism beyond 2009; tourism competitiveness in the current world economy; tourism and sustainable development; the role of technology in tourism; traditional and non-traditional tourism marketing in a time of rapid change; and Jamaica’s path to further tourism growth.
It will bring together a wide range of expertise in tourism and its related industries, including renowned Economist Geoffrey Lipman; Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the UNWTO, Taleb Rifai; UNWTO’s Regional Representative for the Americas, Carlos Vogeler; Secretary-General of the Caribbean Hotel Association, Alec Sanguinetti; and Secretary-General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization, Hugh Riley.
Jamaican partners in the seminar include President of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, Wayne Cummings and Director of Tourism, John Lynch. The Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett, will open the seminar, which will also be addressed by the Tourism Minister for the Bahamas, Vincent Vanderpool Wallace.
The Deputy Director pointed out that the event has broadened over the years, from a local focus to a regional and global event on the UNWTO calendar.
“We are very proud that the event, in a very short time, has grown in terms of its content and professional presentation to attract the attention of the UNWTO, that they are prepared to put resources behind making this an event for regional tourism,” Mr. Shields said.
“We look forward to two days of engaging and stimulating dialogue which will guide the development of plans that will help to move the industry towards further growth and development,” Mr. Shields said.