MINISTER of Tourism Edmund Bartlett, who is keen on protecting Jamaica as an ideal tourist destination, says efforts are being made to ensure greater public order within the tourism space to make these areas more visitor-friendly.

Bartlett, who was opening the 2023/24 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, said public order issues are now more significant than they were prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The current boom in tourism numbers has drawn more and more of our citizens into the tourism space, offering… myriad…goods and services. [It] is a good thing that so many more people are coming into the tourism space but it also can be a bad thing if disorder, criminality, and poor practices are made to creep in and provide a disruption of destination assurance offered to our visitors,” he said.

He further lamented that it takes one bad incident to damage a destination for months, if not years, arguing that “we have a duty to ensure that persons entering the space follow the rules and are respectful of the importance of law and order”.

In his written text Bartlett noted that the Tourism Product Development Company Limited (TPDCo) is leading efforts, in conjunction with the security forces, to bring order to spaces that have gotten out of control and are damaging to Jamaica as a destination.

“Those efforts include, importantly, regularising the many good-natured and hard-working illegal operators who need a helping hand to bring them in conformity with our nation’s laws and regulations,” he said.

He added: “The more orderly and law-abiding our attractions are, the more business they will get, and ultimately [this will result in] more benefits for everyone.

“For those keen on continuously breaking the law and engaging in all sorts of criminal and inappropriate activities, the relevant authorities will deal with them as the law stipulates,” he warned.

In the meantime, Bartlett told the House that even though Jamaica is perceived in some quarters as having a challenge in terms of safety, crime against tourists remains extremely low.

“Our record of visitor safety in Jamaica is enviable across the world, with a record of 0.1 per cent of all the crimes committed against visitors,” he said.

“When the commissioner of police announced a 20 per cent reduction in crime in the first quarter of the year, that was good news for all of us,” he said.