ST ELIZABETH, Jamaica – Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett has launched a special $20 million revolving loan facility, financed by the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), to boost the compliance of small tourism properties, attractions and businesses in Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth.

In a release this afternoon, the ministry said that the initiative forms part of the National Community Tourism Policy and Strategy aimed at developing community tourism island-wide to diversify the island’s tourism product.

The Community Tourism Loan Facility was launched at BREDS Treasure Beach Sports Park recently and serves as counterpart funding for the Compete Caribbean Initiative, which has committed some US$627, 000 to date, to develop this form of tourism in the area.

The loan scheme is being administered by Jamaica National Small Business Loans (JNSBL). Applicants will be able to access loans of up to $2 million at a highly subsidised interest rate of three per cent per annum for five years through JNSBL.

In officially launching the facility Bartlett said that the scheme will enable community tourism enterprises in Treasure Beach to become compliant and more appealing. This he said is crucial to positioning Treasure Beach as a unique destination offering a “rustic luxury experience which the rich and famous seek when they want to escape from the formal luxurious settings that are characteristic of some of the destinations that we know, where the link with nature is never broken but the quality of the creature comforts are still at the highest level.”