ST JAMES, Jamaica (JIS) –Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, says he will be signing an agreement with his tourism counterpart in Cuba, which will facilitate multi-destination marketing between the countries.

Addressing the official opening of the Jamaica Product Exchange (JAPEX) Trade Show, at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, in St James, on Friday, Bartlett also said that another agreement is to be signed soon between Jamaica and a number of Caribbean countries for a similar multi-destination marketing programme to commence.

“On Friday of next week (May 6), Minister (Manuel Cruz) Marrero (Minister of Tourism in Cuba) and myself will sign an agreement for multi-destination tourism between Cuba and Jamaica and somewhere in the middle of June, a similar signing will take place between the Dominican Republic and Jamaica,” he noted.

The minister said the push for multi-destination marketing for Jamaica and its Caribbean counterparts is necessary, because it has been discovered that the way forward for the growth of tourism in the region is based on island convergences and not island competitiveness.

“The way forward for the growth of tourism in the Caribbean is about collaboration and the sharing of resources and the rationalisation of our space and the harmonisation of  our policies,” Bartlett argued.