The Ministry of Tourism, in partnership with stakeholders in the sector, is moving with alacrity to regain lost ground in the Canadian market.

In fact, the issue of restoring growth out of Canada dominated Monday’s talks between Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, his team and other stakeholders in the tourism sector during a meeting at the Montego Bay Convention Centre.

“The indications are that we are pacing reasonably well for the winter, but we need to shore up the market, in particular in Canada. And a lot of effort was spent on discussing Canada. Indeed the larger part of the (Monday) morning’s discussion on the market was spent dealing with Canada and how we can work with our partners there; what type of operational support we can give, what kind of value added we can generate to build the customer value proposition that the market is looking for,” the tourism minister told reporters.

“And I am very heartened with the value propositions from the hoteliers and our other partners who were here at the meeting. We all seem to be of one mind that the Canadian market has to come back to growth ways.”

The tourism minister added that together with tourism partners, he will be leading a team of tourism ministry officials off to Canada “in late August… early September this year, to engage our partners and to craft a strategy that will bring back the growth”.

One member of his team, Director of Tourism Paul Pennicook, also articulated the need to restore growth out of Canada.

“We are determined to certainly cauterise the decline that we have been seeing out of Canada and resume the growth. And so, whatever we have to do, we are doing it; that is why we are having discussions with our partners. Because it has to be a collective thing in order for us as a destination to resume growth out of Canada,” Pennicook noted.

Meanwhile, Bartlett described Monday’s meeting as a “proactive response to current developments within our market, as well as ocal situations, particularly as it relates to destination assurance and the safety and security of our citizens in general and our tourism product in particular”.

“So this is a start of a series of these types of consultations that we will be having with the sector as we navigate the changing elements of the market and put ourselves in a position where we are on the cutting edge and we are able to respond quickly to any eventuality within the marketplace,” Bartlett explained.