FALMOUTH, Trelawny — Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett yesterday disclosed that this sea port town is now qualified to be a tourism resort area.

“With the development of Falmouth as a major port and with it the expectations for a number of rooms to be added in the immediate area around it. Falmouth will now qualify to become a resort area given the density of rooms expected,” disclosed Bartlett, who was speaking to journalists onboard the Oasis of the Seas.

Oasis of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise vessel yesterday called on the Falmouth cruise shipping port, which was officially opened by Prime Minister Bruce Golding.

Meanwhile, during yesterday’s impromptu press conference, the tourism minister signalled his intent to review resort and tourism areas.

Bartlett disclosed plans to seek Cabinet’s blessings to renounce prescribed tourism areas. He is advocating that the entire island be designated prescribed areas.

“But as we grow the tourism industry and Jamaica becomes far more of a destination itself with numerous other destinations such as Falmouth, the need for us to abandon the notion of prescribed areas is very strong,” Bartlett argued. ” We are saying now we are going to abandon the idea of a whole prescribed area make the whole country a prescribed area so that to vend anywhere now you have to have permission from the local authorities, such as the parish councils and so on”.

A Prescribed Area is a area specially designated under the Tourism Act that is monitored and managed, primarily by the Jamaica Tourist Board Act (JTB).

But, Bartlett is seeking to empower the local authorities “to monitor and implement the laws in relation to key activities in their township”.

“The position of maintaining prescribed areas continue to give impression that tourism is an enclave industry that is only involved in certain little places and not the whole island. So what we are saying to you is that tourism is a major industry in the country that involves the entire country and therefore we don’t need to prescribe any area anymore for tourism activity so the entire country is now prescribed,” Bartlett argued.

He added: ” The resort areas will remain but now for prescribed that is a different system”.