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Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Bartlett named PATWA advisor

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Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett has accepted an invitation to become an advisor to international travel writers’ group — Pacific Area Travel Writers Association (PATWA).

The invitation was made by the group’s Secretary General, Sagur Ahluwalia last Friday, who shared that the Minister’s rich experience will be beneficial to the organization.

In expressing his gratitude, Minister Bartlett said, “It is an honour to have been selected as an advisor to the prestigious PATWA organization. I offer my services to the organization and hope that we are able to share ideas which will have a positive impact on the growth of tourism both regionally and internationally.”

PATWA is a professional organisation of travel writers which was founded in 1998, at the Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA) Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Its founding philosophy is to support PATA’s primary objectives of being a catalyst for responsibly developing the travel and tourism industry in the Asia Pacific region.

Minister Bartlett was this year awarded the Pacific Area Travel Writers Association’s (PATWA) Tourism Minister of the Year for Sustainable Tourism for 2018 in Berlin, Germany
During the awards presentation, Jamaica also received PATWA’s International Travel Award for Destination of the Year.

The awards recognised ¬individuals and organisations that have excelled and/or are involved in the promotion of ¬tourism from different sectors of the travel trade and service ¬providers related directly or indirectly to the industry.

MEDIA CONTACT: Jamaica Ministry of Tourism, Corporate Communications, 64 Knutsford Boulevard, Kingston 5, Tel: 920-4926-30, Fax: 920-4944

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Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Bartlett pumps J$200 million into Linkages Networks

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Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett has committed J$200 million to the Linkages Networks to help build out more products to enhance the visitor experience and ensure more inclusive growth in the sector.

Speaking at the launch of the new Top Events Jamaica Initiative yesterday at Devon House, Minister Bartlett said, “This year, we will be spending 200 Million dollars on the Networks to create the level of inclusiveness that connects the ordinary Jamaican to the tourism product and the product to the ordinary Jamaican.

This will be a huge game changer and we are going to change the narrative and also change the feeling of the public that tourism is only for the bigger suppliers and doesn’t include the smaller players.”

The Tourism Linkages Network’s (TLN’s) main focus has been to bring local tourism suppliers in contact with other sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing. In doing so, the Linkages Network creates more economic opportunities for our local tourism suppliers who can then earn more.

Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett (1st R) paused for a photo at the track and field display at the launch of the new Top Events Jamaica Initiative yesterday at Devon House

Driving this inclusive growth are five networks geared towards building out authentic Jamaican experiences for the visitors and increasing the earning potential of small suppliers and they are – Gastronomy, Sports and Entertainment, Shopping, Knowledge and Health and Wellness.

The new Top Events Jamaica initiative, being spearheaded by the TLN, is designed to increase visitor participation in events and activities island-wide through strategic partnerships and leveraging the power of technology, social media, and advertising.

In highlighting the importance of this new platform, Minister Bartlett, said, “Top Events will place all our best entertainment products and offerings under one roof. In doing so we are allowing visitors and locals alike to chance to find these offerings with the click of a button. Top events will be a critical element that brings together our authentic Jamaican entertainment products under one roof through the use of technology.

This type of interface is critical in the age of technology especially given that entertainment forms a large part of why people travel and as such there is value in building out more products of this nature to drive arrivals and growth in the sector.”

The Top Events initiative will include a microsite and an easy to use mobile app to increase visitor awareness and participation in the over 900 events held in Jamaica each month. To qualify for listing on Top Events, event organizers must meet the predetermined criteria outlined by the TLN that guarantees continuity in the content delivery and effective data capture.

The TLN’s Sports and Entertainment Network (SEN) will be the driving force behind Top Events Jamaica and the body ultimately responsible for the final selection of “Top Events” to be added to the event calendar.

MEDIA CONTACT: Jamaica Ministry of Tourism, Corporate Communications, 64 Knutsford Boulevard, Kingston 5, Tel: 920-4926-30, Fax: 920-4944

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Jamaica’s Tourism Minister: Use art for community renewal

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Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, has challenged the local art community to take art out of the educational institutions and art galleries and into Jamaica’s inner city communities as a vehicle of social and economic renewal.

“We need to consider new and innovative approaches to bring art out of Edna Manley into the wider community and bring art out of the Nation Gallery into Trench Town and into Barret Town and Granville and some of the harsher inner city areas,” Minister Bartlett said.

He was speaking at the closing ceremony for internationally acclaimed Jamaican artist Bryan McFarlane’s “New Beginnings” exhibition and the official launch of the Gene Pearson Gallery at The R Hotel, New Kingston, on the weekend.

Internationally acclaimed Jamaican artist Professor Bryan McFarlane (2nd left) discusses his abstract “Like The Weather When It’s Gray” with (l-r) Canada’s High Commissioner to Jamaica, Her Excellency Laurie Peters; Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Jennifer Griffith; R Hotel owner Evan Williams; and Head of Chancery, Nigerian High Commission in Jamaica, Mrs. Anthonia Akunne. The occasion was the closing ceremony for Professor Bryan’s “New Beginnings” exhibition and the opening of the Gene Pearson Gallery at The R Hotel, New Kingston, on Saturday, April 13.

Reiterating a commitment given earlier this month to disburse J$300 million to 63 communities across the country to boost Community Tourism, Minister Bartlett encouraged Jamaica’s artists to use some of the money to develop creative placements in these communities.

Expanding on the idea, he said, “The concept of creative placement might be something that we can borrow. The United States does it quite well by utilizing relic buildings, underused and abandoned playing fields and almost every facility that seems lacking in its asset value within communities to become creative placement centers. It gives a sense of pride and creates a feeling of cultural connection.”

Minister Bartlett said he would like to see the transforming effect that art and culture has on the lives of people demonstrated. “While we reflect on the beauty of this exhibition and the aesthetics that will fill our hearts as we move around, I want us to use this opportunity to think beyond the art. Let us think development, let us think transformation, let us think innovation and see if there is another remedy for the social disruptions that we are having in our communities across Jamaica,” he concluded.

Paraphrasing French poet Gaston Bachelard, Professor Bryan McFarlane said there is immensity in minuteness and “Jamaica, the place where I have most been inspired throughout my life, is immense.”

He encouraged patrons to look at his art and see the “immense kind of spaces and ideas and metaphors and images that are there and try to read them with your heart and institution.”

Professor McFarlane teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth in the United States. He has exhibited his work at numerous museums and lectured as a visiting artist at universities throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and has won numerous awards.

The 14 pieces exhibited, constituting watercolors and oil on linen, were from McFarlane’s collections and touched on themes when he lived in China, Turkey and Africa.

MEDIA CONTACT: Jamaica Ministry of Tourism, Corporate Communications, 64 Knutsford Boulevard, Kingston 5, Tel: 920-4926-30, Fax: 920-4944

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1 million visitors and US$800 million earned in 9 weeks

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With visitor arrivals for the first nine weeks of this year exceeding one million and Jamaica being the first Caribbean destination to achieve this result, Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, says the tourism industry has reached the peak of its growth. Earnings for the nine weeks have been put at US $800 million.

The latest arrival figures were disclosed by Minister Bartlett as he delivered the keynote address at the official opening of Montego Bay’s newest attraction, the Grand-A-View Restaurant and Event Place on the weekend.

He said the figures signaled “that the earnings from tourism can now penetrate the economy of Jamaica and is influencing all the consumption patterns within the economy.” Also, said Minister Bartlett, “the industry now is at the peak of its growth” but will face new targets “because we’re in a continuous state of growth.”

Lauding the proprietors of Grand-A-View, Carl and Dr Barbara Erskine for their investment, Minister Bartlett was pleased that they had done so in gastronomy, stating that Jamaica must leverage for great effect, its ability to combine something produced or manufactured here with the range of international cuisine it offers to the world.

GRAND OPENING: Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett (5TH left) is applauded as he cuts the ribbon to officially declare open the Grand –A-View Restaurant and Event Place in Montego Bay on Saturday, March 9, 2019. Sharing in the historic occasion are (left to right): Chairman of the Tourism Enhancement Fund, Hon Godfrey Dyer; Attorney Courtney Hamilton; Grand-A-View owners Carl Erskine and wife Dr Barbara Erskine; Custos of St James, Bishop Conrad Pitkin; Mayor of Montego Bay, Homer Davis and Regional Director, Jamaica Tourist Board, Mrs. Odette Dyer.

“Food tourism is going to be the major driver for growth and the experiential tourism product in Jamaica, but it is also going to be the basis on which a larger number of ordinary Jamaicans are going to be involved in the value chain of tourism,” said Minister Bartlett.

In consideration of that forecast, he disclosed, “We’re spending, from the Tourism Linkages Network, over USD300, 000 in this new fiscal year and building out these kinds of attractions and activities for the ordinary Jamaican. We’re starting out by reimagining the Lilliput area where now we have close to 3,000 rooms and by the end of this year we would have broken ground for at least 2,000 rooms in the Rose Hall area.”

The Tourism Minister said that is going to mean a demand for Jamaican goods and services such as barbers and hair braiders and “we met with some backyard farmers in Lilliput recently because we’re going to help to plant vegetables like tomatoes, the fruits that are natural to the area like soursop and sweetsop, and make sure that those fruits are sold to the hotels across the road from where they live.” Minister Bartlett said this initiative would be replicated in Negril and St Ann “because this is a big area.”

He also said coffee was now being treated as an international product in tourism “that every visitor that comes to Jamaica as of this year on a cruise ship will get a cup of Jamaican coffee at the terminal when they arrive.”

According to Minister Bartlett discussions were also taking place with Finance and Planning Minister, Dr Nigel Clarke on how to improve the fiscal arrangements that will allow “the kind of tax arrangements that will incentivize production and make more people want to invest in various areas of Jamaica.”

He singled out investment in food and restaurants, noting, “We’re looking at how to make it easier for them to bring higher cut pieces of meat and other items that are required to make us provide the higher level of culinary expressions that are deemed good for the growth of tourism in Jamaica.”

In consideration of what the Grand-A-View offers, Minister Bartlett said it was a solid investment to the growth and development of the city and portends that Montego Bay was returning to being the happening place for business and the entertainment centre for tourism in Jamaica.

The Grand-A-View is the only facility of its kind in Montego Bay, featuring an Observation Tower on the third floor that offers a 180-degree captivating view of the northern coast of the city. It also boasts an executive lounge, a conference room and an exquisitely laid out dining room.

Also welcoming the Grand-A-View as a fine addition to the Montego Bay landscape were Mayor Homer Davis and St James Custos, Bishop Conrad Pitkin; former minister of government, Dr Karl Blythe; Tourism Enhancement Fund Chairman, Hon Godfrey Dyer and Rev Frank Kellier, all of whom joined Dr Barbara Erskine in cutting the ribbon signifying the opening.

MEDIA CONTACT: Alyssa Taffe, Public Relations Officer, Ministry of Tourism, 64 Knutsford Boulevard, Kingston 5, Tel: (876) 920-4926-30, Mobile: (876) 441-5055, Fax: (876) 906 1729