Tourism Minister Invites Local Investors to Develop Gastronomy Sector

With 42 per cent of the expenditure of a visitor being on food, Tourism Minister, Hon Edmund Bartlett, is inviting local investors to build the capacity of Jamaica for it to become “a real strong foodie destination”.

The Minister made the call in an interview with JIS News at an event dubbed ‘Come Back to Craving’, held at the Devon House Mansion in Kingston on June 21, where a group of local and international journalists were treated to a unique gastronomy experience.

“Let’s own the gastronomy experience. Let me invite Jamaican investors into building out more restaurants, better quality restaurants, great food experiences across the length and breadth of Jamaica and we will ensure that we have the patronage and the visitor take-up to make sure that we remain a strong, vibrant and safe economy,” said Minister Bartlett, adding that the strength of the economy rests on the earnings of the people.

He noted that Devon House was designated as the Gastronomy Centre of Jamaica and the Caribbean, and as a result, the Ministry of Tourism has been developing a Gastronomy Policy.

Minister Bartlett further pointed out that gastronomy is a huge driver of the Jamaican tourism experience.

“We think that Jamaica has the most delectable of all foods. We also have the variety and range to satisfy the palate of the most discriminating of our visitors and so, we want to build out on that. We want to invest more in the food and food types of Jamaica,” said the Minister.

He also indicated the desire to go to the origins of Jamaican food in order to tell the story of how it came to be.

“Our gastronomy has a story and that story we want to be told, and that story is better understood when we talk with the people who are the real creators of our gastronomy,” the Minister said.

Mr. Bartlett pointed out that Jamaica now has the potential to bring a new element of tourism demography into the destination.

He indicated that with Jamaica possibly having the richest biodiversity in the Caribbean, “from our own plants and our flora in general, we have been able to extract some of the most nutritious elements to combine into the food offerings that Jamaica represents”.

“So, I think our story is a strong and compelling one, and as we build out the tourism arrivals [and] bring more people to the destination, we create consumption patterns that are new and different and varied,” said Minister Bartlett, noting that Jamaica has the capabilities to present the food types that will respond to these different consumption patterns.

The Come Back to Craving event attracted international journalists from some of the top food magazines in Canada and the United States of America.