MONTEGO BAY, St James — Qualified operators of small tourism-related businesses are to benefit from funding and skills training when the Virgin Holidays Branson Centre for Entrepreneurship opens in Montego Bay in June.

Virgin Holidays, a top British-based tour company and an affiliate of Virgin Atlantic Airlines, will be pumping £2 million over the next 10 years or £200,000 annually to operate the centre, according to officials of the company who made the announcement Monday during a press conference at the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association’s (CHTA) Marketplace 2011, which ended yesterday at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in Rose Hall.

Amanda Wills, managing director of Virgin Holidays, said that the establishment of the centre shows the tour company’s commitment to the destination.

“The centre also shows our commitment to the long term sustainability of one of our most important destinations and our support of the Caribbean’s primary industry which is tourism,” Wills said.

The centre, she added, will have satellites in other Caribbean islands and will be overseen locally by entrepreneurs Lisa Lake and Patrick Casserly.

Wills said the centre is expected to contribute positively to the communities and countries in which Virgin Holidays operate.

The programme will cater to participants in the age group 18 to 35 who are already engaged in small business ventures, particularly those related to tourism.

As for the seed capital to be given to participants, Wills said this will vary base on the type of business each individual is operating.

Andrew Shelton, marketing director of Virgin Holidays, said they will be looking for partners to come on board to provide additional investment for the programme.

Meanwhile, Wills explained that in a moving and challenging climate the onus is on them to think and do things “in a new way”.

It was this need for innovation that Wills said gave birth to the Virgin Holidays Branson Centre for Entrepreneurship.

“Conceived as a not-for-profit hub for enterprising individuals from across the region, it will provide access to both skills training and funding to enable job creation,” Wills said.

With Virgin said to be founded on principles of enterprise and entrepreneurship, Wills said it is therefore only right that it supports an initiative that fuels this spirit in others.

“The centre is just one example of how we are investing in the future of tourism in the Caribbean, and is a statement of our conviction that the region has a strong and bright future.

In the meantime, she reiterated that the last 12 months have seen another turbulent year in the travel industry with many challenges to negotiate, among them the controversial Air Passenger Duty increase, the April volcanic ash that grounded flights for days, wide public sector cuts in the United Kingdom and rising oil prices.

“However, Virgin Holidays has continued to enjoy the productive partnerships that have characterised our years of working in the Caribbean,” she said, adding that the region still remains the destination of choice for a lot of customers.

The Virgin Atlantic airline, operated by Richard Branson, started flying out of Jamaica in 2007 after Air Jamaica sold its London Heathrow slots and gave up flying to that city.