MONTEGO BAY, St James — Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett is calling on all players in the hospitality sector to make a paradigm shift in some of their operations in order to remain relevant in the competitive, evolving, global, multi-trillion dollar industry.

“Tourism is not like in the past; its a trillion dollars all over the world and more countries are involved in tourism like never before. So the competition for the cruise people and the competition for the stopover visitors is greater now than it has ever been, and everybody is doing new things – doing fresh things, doing different things. So we have to do new things and different things or else we are going to be left out – and that is the message that we want all of our partners to convey,” Bartlett told vendors at the Harbour Street Craft in Montego Bay, St James, on Friday.

In fact, Bartlett announced plans to market craft markets with Cleo, a digital marketing company helping thousands of small and medium businesses, including cruises globally.

“We have to market the craft markets better and I am going to be engaging the Cleo marketing people to put you on their system. But we have to look good, we have to look better, because when the pictures go to the people in the market they are going to pick and say we don’t want this and we don’t want that,” the tourism minister argued.

“Another thing is that they see us before they come because of how the new technology now allows people to know about everywhere. People now see things and they buy it before they come, so sometime when they come and they drive past you is because them buy it already.”

He argued that with the expansion of the Montego Bay port to accommodate larger vessels and the addition of Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), there were prospects for a flurry of business opportunities for Montego Bay’s craft vendors in the next two years.

“Port Authority is doing a good job to expand the port to accommodate the largest ship that Carnival will make to come to Jamaica by 2020, and this ship is going to be of the size of the Oasis of the Seas and those that go to Falmouth. And in addition to that the AIDA, with home port here (Montego Bay) on the weekends, is coming now with a bigger ship with 6000 passengers, so Montego Bay is set to explode as it were in terms of cruise arrivals as we are also in terms of stopover arrivals,” the tourism minister pointed out.

“But these new types of tourists that are coming are more discriminating. And some of the things that passed long time ago and say this is native Jamaican is no longer acceptable to them.”

Bartlett, however, expressed that he is encouraged by the improved standards of genuine, local craft items on display at the craft market.

“The quality I have seen shows great improvements. The last time I toured in here what I see [now] is far more. And I see more authentic Jamaican stuff, local stuff. That puts us in a better position to market it because when the visitors come and they get authentic things that validate his visit, that tell the world that I came to Jamaica and not Cuba or Barbados…or even if I went to other places I can say I went to Jamaica.”

The tourism minister said he will be taking the message of the new thrust to all craft markets over the island.