DUNCANS, Trelawny — Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett anticip
ates that expansion of Montego Bay’s elegant corridor to the Trelawny/St Ann border, coupled with promised hotel investments, will transform Trelawny into a major player in the country’s tourism sector.

“We are going to extend the elegant corridor from [the] Montego Bay airport all the way to the border of Trelawny, because [Prime Minister] Andrew Michael Holness has now finished negotiating a highway expansion plan and programme to give you four lanes. Not no little one-way something — [a] four-way from Sea Castle in my [St James East Central] constituency, all the way to the border of Rio Bueno, to the Queen’s Highway,” Bartlett said.

His comments came from the political stage Sunday night during the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP’s) Duncans divisional conference held at the community’s primary school. Bartlett also spoke of advanced plans for expansion of the now-closed Braco Hotel which is located on the proposed Trelawny corridor.

The 232-room hotel is owned by the National Insurance Fund (NIF), for which it once generated income. Its doors were shuttered after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country’s tourism sector and they have not reopened since.

“We are in closing discussions to transform Braco Hotel. An international partner is now in discussion for us to have 600 more rooms there and to make that into a first class hotel in Jamaica,” Bartlett revealed.

He also told the sea of green-clad Labour Party supporters that, after the project languished for two decades, ground is to be broken later this year for the US$1.4-billion Harmony Cove project. He said construction will start next year on the 1,000-room property.

“It will employ over 5,000 people, and already the partners who are working with the Government of Jamaica are here discussing with [the] MP [Member of Parliament for Trelawny Northern Tova Hamilton], discussing with the minister, discussing with the mayor, discussing with us how the development [can] happen for the people of Trelawny,” said a pumped-up Bartlett.

He explained that because the multimillion-dollar development will include a casino hotel, efforts are being made to develop a training programme for staff “to make sure you know how to deal with casino centres”.

“That’s a new dimension to our tourism — Las Vegas coming to Harmony Cove — but the important thing is that we are going to be training you to be able to manage this aspect of tourism,” Bartlett stated.

The Harmony Cove project has been a long time coming.

In an update earlier this year, the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service put investment capital and start-up costs at US$1 billion for the project being jointly undertaken by the Government-owned Harmonisation Limited and Tavistock Group. The release also stressed that the agreement between the parties now includes a defined timeline, with development milestones.

“Tavistock Group and Harmonisation Limited will begin work immediately through Harmony Cove Limited — with the appointment of leading global, architectural, engineering, and construction management firms to finalise and implement the agreed development plan,” the finance ministry said then.

During his comments from the political platform on Sunday, Bartlett also reminded Trelawny residents that a 700-room Planet Hollywood hotel is also planned for the parish, “beside Royalton Blue Waters”.

MP Hamilton is preparing for a showdown with the People’s National Party’s Dr Wykeham McNeill, a former tourism minister, in the next general election.

Bartlett took a swipe at the PNP’s representative.

“All the people who want to come back again, tell them them irrelevant. We done with them, because Tova is now fully in charge and she is going to carry the development home,” he said.