Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett has announced a bold repositioning of Jamaica’s tourism sector to ensure locals gain a greater share of the industry’s wealth while advancing its growth over the next five years.
Speaking at the opening of the Jamaica Product Exchange (JAPEX) 2025 trade show at Harmony Beach Park, Montego Bay, earlier this week, Bartlett revealed that the new “Local First” strategy will be supported by legislation and a regulatory framework designed to deepen the role of Jamaicans in the lucrative tourism value chain.
With tourism on the cusp of achieving the 5x5x5 targets of 5 million visitors, US$5 billion in earnings, in 5 years, Bartlett said the next phase will focus on sustainable growth, innovation, and greater linkages across agriculture, industry, commerce, and the creative industries.
He described the year ahead as “a seminal year” that will see the widest consultations in tourism’s history, as the Ministry charts a new path for inclusive and sustainable development. The Minister welcomed Tova Hamilton as the new State Minister for Tourism while lauding former State Minister Delano Seiveright for his pivotal role in repositioning tourism over the last nine years.
Highlighting global forecasts of 3 billion travellers within the next two decades, Minister Bartlett affirmed Jamaica’s mission to build products around the passion points of visitors, saying, “Our job is to be right in the middle to say to them, there’s only one place to go, and that is Jamaica.”