EXECUTIVE director at the Tourism Enhancement Fund Carey Wallace has welcomed the opening of the Alpha Mercy Historical Centre, which he says is another step in creating spaces for visitors who want to have a more engaging and immersive experience with the history of the island

The museum commemorates 146 years of partnership between the Sisters of Mercy and Jamaica, and gives those who visit it a chance to revisit all the achievements and contributions that the organisation has made to the island.

Addressing the opening of the historical centre on Tuesday, Wallace underscored the push by local tourism officials to market Jamaica as more than sun, sea, and sand.

“You see, cultural tourism is something that is really important to us in our forward development of tourism. We call it tourism 3.0, [which] is where we are moving from the usual metric of looking at tourism numbers, arrivals, and moving to where we are looking at the impact that it has on the country,” said Wallace.

“A vacationer is one who may travel to escape — to escape their homes, their cold, their country jungles, their children…and they just need to escape. So if their toes are in the sand and a piña colada is in their hand, or a Red Stripe, they are happy. And so we have seen where the all-inclusive model works well for that type of vacation.

“There is another type of visitor, and that is the traveller, the one whose value is in the experiences that they get when they go to a destination. The sights, the sounds, the tastes, all that they can soak up, enriching their own lives, by being in a new destination” added Wallace.

Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange (right), and Speaker of the House of Representatives Juliet Holness (second right) join Sister Shirley Chung (left) as she points to herself in a picture taken in 2004 of a group of 30 Sisters at Alpha. At second left is Sister Mary Andrew Campbell, Franciscan Missionary Sister. (Photo: JIS)

According to Wallace, he expects the country to continue growing economically as a result of endeavours such as the opening of museums to expand Jamaica’s appeal beyond its conventional borders, and as a result is expecting an increase to US$10 billion in tourism revenue in 10 years.

“We are targeting a 10 x 10 x 10 group, [that is] to have 10 million visitors, earning US$10 billion in 10 years. To do that, we will have to increase the arrivals of the experiential traveller. The one who comes to soak up what Jamaica has to offer. The nooks, the crannies, the mountains, the rivers, the valleys, and thankfully, we have so many of them in abundance” Wallace said.

In his address to the opening of the Alpha facility, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness said the Government is moving to invest in museums and cultural institutions across Jamaica as it seeks to broaden the country’s tourism product, preserve its national heritage, and give Jamaicans and visitors greater opportunities to experience the history, achievements, and exceptionalism of the Jamaican people beyond sun, sea, and sand.

According to Holness, the plan is to include seamlessness, safety, security, sightseeing, and symbolism.

He said with visitor arrivals approaching five million, the priority is increasingly to raise the value of the visitor experience rather than simply the number of visitors.

“We can easily go to 10 million visitors. But the challenge that the tourism industry is facing now is not increasing the numbers, the challenge is how do we increase the value of the visitor experience when they come? Does the mystique of Jamaica match the product we promote? That is the big question for tourism now,” said Holness.