THE Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry wants the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) to provide an update on the status of the city’s long-awaited convention centre.

“We are extremely anxious to be updated by the UDC with regards to the status of the convention centre which the Prime Minister (P J Patterson) promised Montego Bay would be opened by March 2003,” said president Mark Kerr-Jarrett.

The issue was raised at the chamber’s last monthly meeting but has been a source of concern for years, ever since Patterson promised the $100-million facility to the resort city. It is to be located in the Rose Hall area where the land has already been earmarked but the slow pace of the development has rankled tourism and business interests.

The convention centre is seen as having the potential to boost the city’s tourism earnings both directly and indirectly. It would also help position the island as a premier location for groups and conventions and give Jamaica a foothold in that lucrative market.

“It is an essential facility which will increase Jamaica’s marketability as a convention and conference destination and would provide multiple spin-off effects in the areas of sports, shopping, restaurant and dining and other amusement facilities,” Kerr-Jarrett argued in an interview with the Observer. “Furthermore, if you can please the individual who is here on business, you can almost be guaranteed that he will come back with his family for a vacation.”

Montego Bay, the chamber president said, is an ideal venue for the convention centre with its geographical location and the added value of the Air Jamaica hub at the Sangster airport.

According to the last update provided a few months ago by UDC head, Dr Vin Lawrence, the numbers are now being crunched to figure out how the facility would be maintained. There has been some suggestion that Montego Bay hotels may be called upon to provide some level of funding, from a levy placed on occupied rooms.

Kerr-Jarrett declined to comment on the proposal to raise funding from the hotels, saying that he was unfamiliar with the details. However, he reiterated the need for an update from the UDC.

“I am not au fait with the (levy) issue so I really couldn’t make an educated comment on it. That’s not our business. We want to know what the status is and we need the facility,” he said.