Jamaica must use cultural heritage to enhance tourism — Bartlett
ST JAMES, Jamaica— Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett says Jamaica must tap into its rich cultural heritage to enhance the tourism product.
Addressing the second staging of the Jamaica Youth Tourism Summit at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in Rose Hall, St James recently, he noted that tourism and culture are intricately intertwined.
“Tourism is your culture, and your culture is tourism and so you cannot be inviting people to Jamaica for anything else but Jamaican things. Part of my job as your Minister is to help us to bring out the essence of this Jamaican-ness, not just in the products that you have, but stories that we tell,” he noted.
“And so, when we talk about Bob Marley and we talk about Dancehall and … Reggae, they are manifestations; they are the outcomes of your cultural experiences,” he pointed out, noting that these elements must be promoted.
Meanwhile, he charged the future industry professionals to use their training to add value to the sector.
Bartlett told the youngsters that their “primary responsibility is not merely to accumulate the knowledge … but [you] must be able, in time, to use the knowledge that you have to add value to your processes.”
He said that adding value does not necessarily mean creating new strategies but to capitalise on what already exists.
“It is probably not to build a new mouse-trap, but it is to build a better mousetrap,” he noted.
The second youth tourism summit was focused on ‘Cultural Retention in Modern Tourism.’
-JIS