KINGSTON, Jamaica —   Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett says the first board meeting for the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre is scheduled to take place in London tomorrow.

According to the tourism ministry, the group will discuss the creation and implementation of an official strategy for the development of the centre.

“We will be hosting, for the first time in the history of tourism, the board of the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre. I look forward to working alongside the esteemed members of the board, during this very important meeting. Our board is extremely diverse, and has academics from every continent.

This diversity I think is the greatest impact this institution will have on our future,” Bartlett said in a release from the ministry.

The centre will be housed at the UWI Mona Campus and will be officially launched during a conference coinciding with the Caribbean Marketplace Expo in Montego Bay, from January 29-31, 2019.

The ministry said the overall goal of the Centre will be to assess (research/monitor), plan-for, forecast, mitigate, and manage risks related to tourism Resilience and Crisis Management.

This will be achieved through five objectives — research and development, advocacy and communication, programme/project design and management, as well as training and capacity building.

Additionally, the centre will specifically be tasked with creating, producing and generating toolkits, guidelines and policies to assist with preparatory and recovery efforts of tourism stakeholders affected by climatic, pandemic, cyber-crime and cyber-terrorism related disruptions, the ministry said.

 “The first output we will have from the Centre after the launch, will be a global policy framework for climate tourism resilience which will assist nations to plan for and recover from major climate disruptions. This framework was an outcome of the recently held Tourism Resilience Summit of the Americas at The University of the West Indies Regional Headquarters on September 13, 2018,” Bartlett said.

 The Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre was first announced in the “Montego Bay Declaration”, which was unveiled at last year’s UNWTO Global Conference on Sustainable Tourism, in Montego Bay, St James.

The facility will include a Virtual Tourism Observatory, which will monitor, forecast and evaluate threats to destinations globally.