Taking It To A Whole New Level

It was a weekend of hard work and business opportunities – mixed with fun – as Jamaica celebrated the 26th version of JAPEX, the premier trade event and the single most important business generator for the country’s tourism industry, reports Press Today’s Greg Coates from the show.

This year’s show, held in Montego Bay, attracted more than 230 Jamaican suppliers and more than 90 buyers from around the world, including Canada.

Part of the fun included a “Get Ready to Get Wet” JAPEX After Party at Sandals Montego Bay.

Jamaica is coming off a fairly decent 2015 in which it hosted more than two million visitors, up 2.1% from 2014. It wasn’t without its challenges, however, with numbers slipping slightly from Canada due much in part to the weak Canadian dollar and a particularly mild winter.

This prompted Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett (pictured above) to challenge Canadian partners to get numbers back on the positive side of the ledger.

Bartlett said growth and prosperity are the key objectives of his administration, noting that tourism has “the potential to stimulate wide-scale economic activity, drive new growth in our communities, generate the jobs we need so badly and earn billions of dollars in foreign exchange.”

He added that Jamaica must take its tourism industry to a whole new level and identified five key pillars to get this done: tapping into new markets (such as China and Eastern Europe), developing new products, promoting investment, building new partnerships and developing human capital.

Bartlett also introduced a new multi-destination initiative and said he is working with Cuba, and soon the Dominican Republic, on a marketing arrangement. “It’s about collaboration and the sharing of resources,” he said.

“In order to grow our sector we must constantly consider how we can better meet the needs of the increasingly discerning traveller,” he said. “We will be ramping up our efforts to diversify the sector and expand into areas of tourism such as health and wellness, gastronomy and shopping.”

Seen in the photo (below), from l to r, are: Air Canada Vacation’s Eamonn Ferrin, Sandals’ Gary Sadler and the Jamaica Tourist Board’s, Philip Rose.