MONTEGO BAY, St James — With Jamaica on the cusp of welcoming five million visitors and pulling in US$5 billion in annual earnings by the end of 2025, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett has set even loftier targets.

“The next five years we’ll have new KPIs [key performance indicators] in relation to objectives and goals. The result is to achieve eight million visitors, and to earn US$10 billion for the country in the next five years, which will become eight by 10 by five — which will be the new indicators. So the objective is to move from here to 2030… after that, well, we will see,” Bartlett told the Jamaica Observer after officially declaring Jamaica Product Exchange (JAPEX) 2025 open at Harmony Beach Park in Montego Bay Sunday night.

JAPEX, Jamaica’s premier tourism trade show, brings together wholesalers, tour operators and travel agents with the island’s tourism suppliers to conduct business. It runs from September 21 to 26.

According to tourism ministry data, Jamaica welcomed 4.3 million visitors and generated US$4.3 billion in earnings last year, well on its way to meeting Bartlett’s five by five by 2025 target.

“We have to look now into the next five years, to 2030, and then beyond. And my vision, perhaps, will stop somewhere there and then somebody else takes the vision to somewhere else. Who knows?” Bartlett told those gathered for Sunday night’s reception.

“But, certainly, we want to make the next five years the [period] of serious growth, development, inclusive tourism, and a new vista for involvement of the local Jamaicans in the rich, lucrative, and elongated value chain of tourism. I want to say that with a lot of energy because that’s what we’re bringing to this process, that tourism has worked for us as a driver of the economy,” he added.

The minister noted that Jamaica will this year engage in extensive consultation with stakeholders and partners to re-imagine tourism, focusing on new strategies, policy direction, legislative and regulatory changes, and fiscal measures to fully position the country on the supply side of the industry.

“I’m starting that consultation this very week — perhaps the widest level of consultation that we will have in tourism history, no doubt — as we seek to chart and look at the new path forward in this new era,” Bartlett declared.

“I want to greet all of you and thank you for coming to JAPEX 2025. This year for us is going to be a seminal year. This is a year in which we are going to be seeing new approaches to tourism,” he added.

He urged local stakeholders to prepare for a share of the projected global surge that will result in about three billion travellers within the next decade. According to Bartlett, it is vital to understand where these new tourists will come from and align the country’s tourism landscape, demographics, and strategies to capture that growth.

“It is said that in the next 15 to 20 years, 1.5 billion more tourists are going to be traversing the world, adding to the 1.4 billion that we have now. So we’re talking about, 10 years from now, three billion tourists will be travelling across the world. The issue is: Where will they be going? But, more importantly, where are they coming from?” he said.

“Our job [in] Jamaica is to be right in the middle to say to them, ‘There’s only one place to go, and that is Jamaica.’ And our mission, therefore, is to develop the products around these passion points of our visitors, the reasons for them to travel.

“Let’s make it happen right here in Jamaica so that all our 160 buyers will next year expand to 320, and the following year to 640, and we move in geometric progression as we expand and grow and make this great industry work for the people of Jamaica,” he added.

Bartlett, who was recently renamed tourism minister in the new Andrew Holness-led Administration, used the occasion to laud Jennifer Griffiths, who has been permanent secretary in the Ministry of Tourism since 2006, for her sterling contribution over the years.

“She’s been with me in my four iterations as minister of tourism, and that makes her the longest and most effective permanent secretary in the history of Jamaica for tourism. I want to commend her and to position her in that context tonight,” he said Sunday.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett speaking during the JAPEX 2025 opening event in Montego Bay Sunday night.