No Retreat, no Surrender, Despite Global Challenges… More hotels coming … says PM Golding

Prime Minister Bruce Golding has disclosed that the Spanish investors’ hotel group, Fiesta, is to begin construction of another 700 hotel rooms before the end of this year. He has also announced that new sites for the construction of more hotels on the south coast are being explored under the direction of Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett.
Speaking to travel wholesalers and tour operators at the Jamaica Product Exchange trade show launch (JAPEX) at Sandals Cay, Sandals Royal Caribbean in Montego Bay, Mr. Golding said the economy still had a far way to go in terms of expanding. He said that when the global recession hit Jamaica causing the shutdown of three of the four bauxite refineries and the fallout in remittances, dependence on the tourism sector, became even more critical.
Mr. Golding said the country is not intimated by the competition or the difficulties posed by the global economy and would not curl up or retreat. The recovery he said, is on the way but there are concerns that globally, jobs were not recovering as fast so there are still challenges of how to get into the market to attract those persons with the extra dollars to spend on holidays. Despite these challenges, Mr. Golding noted that travel experts had performed very well.
He said Jamaica’s tourism industry had performed ahead of most other countries in the region and continues to expand at a time when other businesses feel they have to contract in order to survive. The Prime Minister said government is going to build more rooms and fill those rooms. He expressed appreciation for the hard work the travel experts have done in persuading visitors to make it Jamaica and he called on them to help build Jamaica so that government can better provide for the people.