Montego Bay, St James

Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, is urging those responsible for creating mayhem in the society, to desist from callous acts which can potentially topple “the powerful Brand Jamaica” from its international number five status.,/B>

“A crazy act at Dunn’s River Falls can change it, a stupid engagement in any of the inner-city areas within Montego Bay can derail it, and an idle act and a wanton disrespect and disregard for each other and for life can damage Jamaica’s chance forever. Let us turn around, spruce up ourselves, change our attitudes, revolutionise our behaviour, turn around our responses and look into a future that will be bright and hopeful for us and our children,” charged Bartlett yesterday during the Montego Bay launch of “Spruce Up Jamaica”, a joint government/private sector effort to beautify the island’s resorts.

Added Bartlett: “We are saying to the minority in our midst who are bent on creating social instability and disorder: it is not worth your effort to try to damage and destroy the number five brand in the world. Stop it! Stop it! Let us stop the violence, let us stop the crime, let us stop the shootings, let us stop the homicide,”

Describing “Spruce Up Jamaica”, which will culminate December 15, the official start to the tourism season, as a “process and not an event”, the tourism minister explained that it would be geared towards the “transformation of the physical environment as well as the phyche of the Jamaican people”.

The programme’s budget is $40 million, $12 million of which will be spent in Montego Bay.