MONTEGO BAY, St James — Montego Bay’s ‘elegant corridor’ is scheduled to be brightly lit at nights before the middle of next year, following the signing of a contract for a $248.4 million lighting project financed by the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF).

Combined with the more than $4.5 million already spent on a palm tree maintenance programme for that stretch of the North Coast Highway — which runs from the Sangster International Airport round-about to Iberostar Hotel in Lilliput — this is the largest investment by the TEF in any single project in the Montego Bay area.

The contract for the lighting project, which has been awarded to YP Seaton & Associates, was signed at the Montego Bay Convention Centre last Friday.

At the signing ceremony, Minister of Tourism and Entertainment Wykeham McNeill thanked the TEF for “the tremendous job” it has been doing and the “significant expenditure that is going into the infrastructure of the city”.

He underscored that, “Many of these projects that we’re doing here, whether it is the cultural centre or the lighting of the ‘elegant corridor’, we’re doing these things as projects for Jamaicans — they benefit us first — and our visitors who come will also benefit from them.”

He added that “it is important that we understand that tourism generates the funds, through the TEF, to undertake these projects, which benefit us as Jamaicans.”