Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, has announced plans to restructure the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) to operate as a centre for innovation. Mr. Bartlett explained that the objective is to reposition the agency to better enable the tourism industry to respond to the needs of the ever-changing global market, and drive the Ministry’s mission to foster significant growth and...

The island’s tourism product has been boosted with the graduation of the first cohort of 150 certified hospitality workers from the Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation (JCTI). The JCTI, which was created to increase access to certification for recent graduates as well as workers in the industry, saw, for the first time, persons being accredited as Hospitality Supervisors and in...

Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, says anti-visitor harassment measures being implemented in resort areas are bearing fruit. These include training programmes and sensitization workshops for frontline industry representatives interacting directly with visitors; and heightened vigilance and patrols by resort security officers. Mr. Bartlett says the positive outcomes are evidenced in Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) visitor opinion surveys which show that...

Jamaica’s thrust to become a preferred faith-based tourism destination is expected to be boosted with the staging of the Supernatural Encounter Jamaica crusade in Montego Bay from April 19 to 21. Speaking at a JIS Think Tank at the Agency’s Montego Bay Regional Office on Tuesday (March 20), event coordinator and founder of Trumpet Call Ministries International, Reverend Mary Wildish,...

The Tourism Linkages Network will be hosting the inaugural staging of the Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Festival from March 23 to 25 at Newcastle in St. Andrew. The festival is part of the initiatives to foster the strategic growth of culinary tourism in Jamaica. The three-day event will showcase the rich tradition of coffee production in the Blue Mountain region...

The Forestry Department has been quietly contributing to the success of tourism in Jamaica’s major vacation belt, through the work of the organisation’s Northwest Regional Office, which operates within the island’s forest reserves and forest management areas. “The northwest region, which stretches from Hanover to St. Ann, covers a wide section of the tourism area, so what we do is...

Caribbean tourism officials, including Jamaica’s Portfolio Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, believe greater air access from source markets and significant hotel investments are recipes for the industry’s success in the region. They note that it is against this background that countries like Jamaica have been active in the marketplace, securing arrangements for more non-stop flights out of non-traditional destinations to add...

Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, says the much-anticipated Tourism Workers’ Pension Scheme should be up and running by mid-2018. He said that the pensions committee, which is chaired by retired actuary, Daisy Coke, is moving steadily towards completing the preliminary processes related to the scheme. “Finally, the long-awaited pension plan is now on the horizon. Yesterday (March 18), we...

Government Senator, Don Wehby, has implored entrepreneurs to take advantage of the abundance of business opportunities resulting from the exponential growth of the tourism sector. Speaking at the Tourism Service Excellence Awards ceremony at the Montego Bay Convention Centre on March 17, Senator Wehby encouraged small businesses, in particular, to participate in the sector, as the Government has provided an...