JAMAICA is moving to establish a Tourism Supply Logistics Centre as an industry-specific special economic zone, making it the operational centrepiece of a broader policy shift aimed at reducing import leakage and pushing more tourism spending into the hands of local farmers, manufacturers and small businesses.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett told Parliament on Tuesday that the proposed centre will become the fifth industry-specific Special Economic Zone under the Special Economic Zone Act, 2016.

The centre is expected to sit within the Government’s Local First policy push, for which Cabinet has approved a concept note. Bartlett said the ministry will now move forward with development of the policy, which is aimed at strengthening local sourcing, supplier development, procurement reform, logistics, financing, quality assurance, standards readiness, market access, and domestic value retention.

In practical terms, the policy is intended to help Jamaica move from being only a place where tourism is consumed to one where more of tourism is produced, supplied, packaged, distributed, and owned by Jamaicans.

That policy push forms part of Bartlett’s wider Tourism 3.0 development agenda, which seeks to shift the sector away from the old 5x5x5 growth agenda towards a broader 10x10x10 framework built around 10 strategic pillars and focused on deeper local integration, fairer opportunities, and greater equity for Jamaicans.

Bartlett’s presentation sets up a clear sequence: Tourism 3.0 is the direction, Local First is the policy framework, and the Tourism Supply Logistics Centre is the proposed delivery mechanism.

The centre is being pitched as the “operating system” for the supply side of the tourism economy and would link hotels, attractions, farmers, manufacturers, distributors, service providers, ports, airports, packhouses, agro-processors, and community producers.

“This is how we move small businesses from the margins of the tourism value chain into the centre of tourism opportunity,” Bartlett said during his Sectoral Debate presentation.

Import leakage occurs when tourism earnings leave the local economy through imported food, goods, services, or foreign-controlled supply chains instead of being retained by domestic producers and workers.

The proposed centre is expected to support warehousing, cold-chain capacity, inventory planning, cargo consolidation, procurement support, trade facilitation, and digital demand planning.

If implemented as outlined, it would represent a more structured attempt to solve one of the long-running weaknesses in Jamaica’s tourism model — the difficulty local producers face in supplying hotels and other tourism businesses consistently at scale and to required standards.

The Ministry of Tourism says the Tourism Linkages Network was approved by Cabinet and established in June 2013 to create and sustain linkages between tourism and productive industries such as agriculture, manufacturing, and entertainment. The network is funded by the Tourism Enhancement Fund.

The network is aimed at increasing the consumption of goods and services that can be competitively sourced locally, while creating employment and retaining more of Jamaica’s foreign exchange earning potential. It also supports marketing and distribution systems, market intelligence, stronger communication between local suppliers and tourism businesses, and technical working groups for agriculture and manufacturing to help minimise leakages and strengthen linkages.

The proposed logistics centre would, therefore, move the linkages agenda from individual programmes and matchmaking events towards a more organised supply-chain platform for the tourism economy.

“For too long, too much tourism value has leaked out of small island economies before transforming the lives of local people,” Bartlett said.

He said the aim is to ensure more Jamaican produce reaches hotel kitchens, more Jamaican-made goods enter hotel rooms, more local entrepreneurs are integrated into the tourism value chain, and more communities participate in the product.

“But policy alone will not be enough. We must now build the systems that allow local businesses to compete, supply, and deliver at scale,” Bartlett said.

The minister said the Ministry of Tourism will work with the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining to advance the project.

Bartlett said the expected impact includes increased local procurement, reduced import leakage, more certified Jamaican suppliers, higher farm-to-hotel sales, expanded agro-processing and manufacturing opportunities, and greater use of Jamaican-made goods.

The minister also said discussions are under way with the Caribbean Tourism Organization and the Inter-American Development Bank on a broader regional approach to tourism supply logistics, including the funding of a study to help shape a Caribbean strategy.

But key details remain outstanding.

Bartlett did not state where the Tourism Supply Logistics Centre will be located, how much it will cost, who will own or operate it, whether private investors will be invited, or when construction and operations are expected to begin.

He also did not say what SEZ benefits or incentives will apply, whether hotels and attractions will face local procurement targets, whether the Local First policy will be voluntary or mandatory, or whether Government will publish data showing how much tourism spending is retained locally.

Those details are important because supplying large tourism businesses typically requires volume, consistency, pricing, packaging, certification, and delivery capacity that many small producers struggle to meet.

Based on Bartlett’s description, the proposed logistics centre appears aimed at addressing those gaps by creating a system that can aggregate supply, improve storage, support delivery planning, and help match tourism demand with Jamaican production.

The minister pointed to existing linkages programmes as evidence of what can be built on.

He said the Agri-Linkages Exchange, known as ALEX, has connected more than 2,000 small farmers to tourism demand, with 2.57 million kilogrammes of produce sold.

The wider tourism linkages framework, he said, has generated approximately $995.1 million in agricultural revenue, more than $1 billion through manufacturing speed networking, and more than $168 million through Christmas in July trade.

Those figures relate to existing tourism linkages initiatives, not the proposed logistics centre, which has not yet been built.

But for local suppliers, the test will be whether the proposed centre can move beyond policy language and solve the practical problems of finance, standards, storage, delivery, and payment terms that have long limited their access to major tourism buyers.

Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett making his contribution to the 2026/27 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. Behind him is state ministerin hisministryTova Hamilton (Photo: Naphtali Junior)