KINGSTON , Jamaica — Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett leaves Jamaica today for a tourism marketing trip to the Europe and North America, which looks more challenging that he may have thought up to a day or two ago.

Bartlett will be travelling head on into the storm created by Monday’s dramatic announcement that tour operator and airline Thomas Cook, which flies vast amounts of visitors between Jamaica and Manchester, England, had suddenly collapsed Sunday after 178 years in operation.

The British company’s sudden fall left hundreds of travellers stranded around the world, and the jobs of 21,000 people at risk.

Bartlett confirmed before leaving that Jamaica stood to lose some 5,000 visitors between yesterday and January due to the failure, but remained optimistic up to last night that aggressive marketing during the Jamaica Travel Market exercise, September 26-28, and discussions with other stakeholders in Europe, could reduce the loss to 2,000-3,000 visitors.

Six “rotations” between yesterday and October could cost the country at least 1,800 visitors, but he thinks that the efforts of the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), supported by him, could cut that loss by 50 per cent.

“It is a co-incidence of timing,” the Minister described the period in which the JTB annually hosts its Jamaica Travel Market abroad to encourage visitors from North America and Europe to come to Jamaica and the Thomas Cook failure.

“While we are on our way to the annual World Travel Market, we will be hosting the Jamaica Travel Market, which we have every year just before the world Travel Market, and we are going to focus on the people who are special to us,” he told OBSERVER ONLINE.

Bartlett and team have been in close touch with the British High Commission along with relevant local and international stakeholders well ahead of the collapse.

“All Thomas Cook tourists in Jamaica will continue to enjoy our warm hospitality until it is time for them to return home,” said Bartlett who, additionally, met with British High Commissioner Asif Ahmad Monday at Jamaica House.

The high commissioner confirmed that customers currently abroad with Thomas Cook who are booked to return to the UK over the next two weeks, will be brought back to their home as close as possible to their booked return date.

Balford Henry