ST JAMES, Jamaica— Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, says Jamaica’s resilient corridors are hailed worldwide as being “safe and secure” for visitors.

The resilient corridors, which encompass the majority of the island’s tourism regions, provide the opportunity for visitors to enjoy more of the country’s unique offerings, as many coronavirus (COVID-19)-compliant attractions, located along the areas, are authorised for visits by the health authorities.

Speaking at ‘Travel Talk’, a German market growth strategy workshop for Jamaica at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James on Wednesday, Bartlett said that the established protocols governing the corridors have been keeping both guests and staff safe.

This, he noted, has resulted in Jamaica being one of the “most sought after destinations” since the reopening of the tourism industry in June 2020.

He said that more than one million visitors from the United States (US) alone have arrived on Jamaica’s shores since then.

“The resilient corridor… is today being celebrated all over the world as a safe and secure place for enjoying, entertaining, and having fun and realising your passions and getting back home feeling comfortable but, most importantly, healthy,” Minister Bartlett said.

“Even when infection levels were raging in the rest of the country and the world, that corridor maintained a record of 0.1 per cent infection,” he added.

Meanwhile, Bartlett pointed to the need for greater commitment to protecting the environment in order to safeguard the global tourism industry.

He noted that, even with the establishment of the Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC), there is greater need, on a global scale, for people to nurture the environment in order to sustain the tourism product, which remains a vulnerable threat to climate change and natural disasters.  

“We recognise that we are a tourism family and tourism is about people moving from one part of the world or one destination… to another and, therefore, all the discussions that we’ve had about sustainability and resilience are vital for tourism because without that, there will be no tourism,” he said.

“If we don’t recognise the value of protecting our environment and the planet Earth, then there will be no product and if there is no product, there will be no movement and if there is no movement, there’s no tourism,” Bartlett underscored.

Travel Talk was organised to engage in meaningful discussions and devise a growth strategy for the crucial Germany market.

Minister Bartlett indicated that based on projections, some 23,000 German tourists are expected to visit the island during the upcoming winter season, due to increased airlift.