KINGSTON, Jamaica — Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett today presented destination assurance managers from each of the island’s resort areas with satellite phones designed to increase communication during major climatic disruptions and other natural disasters.

Speaking at the official handing over ceremony for the satellite phones, at the Ministry of Tourism’s New Kingston office, the minister said that the move is a means of ensuring that the tourism sector can respond quickly and recover fast is central to the overall economic pattern that Jamaica and the Caribbean must have.

“Communication is a central part of resilience building and the ability to bring modern high-tech devices to our communications process is essential,” said Bartlett.

Bartlett disclosed that his ministry would also provide much-needed regional communications support, via the Global Centre for Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management, which will be housed at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus.

 The six satellite phones were acquired as part of an overall system designed to improve the interface and dialogue between the Tourism Ministry and its agencies, the Tourism Emergency Operations Centres, the National Emergency Operations Centre, the tourism resort areas as well as tourism partners and stakeholders.

 The ministry’s Senior Director of Technical Services, David Dobson, who was also at the launch, explained that the satellite phones were acquired based on feedback from tourism stakeholders and disaster managers in 2015, which pointed to the need to enhance the sector’s disaster mitigation and emergency response framework.

 “Previously, we had two-way radios which had a five-mile radius and were not sufficient to cover the entire island. Having received the feedback, we allocated satellite phones that can be used to make calls anywhere in the world even when the network is down. They can also call any kind of phone and provide for faster communication flow,” said Dobson.