KINGSTON, Jamaica— Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, has announced that Jamaica and Spain will craft a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on various aspects of tourism development and economic transformation.

The announcement follows a meeting with Spain's Minister of Industry, Trade, and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, earlier today at FITUR, the world's most significant annual international travel and tourism trade show, now underway in Madrid, Spain. In addition to the Dominican Republic, which is this year's FITUR Partner Country, FITUR brings together almost a hundred countries with seventy official representations.

"I am very pleased to announce that Jamaica and Spain will develop a memorandum of understanding for collaboration in various areas of tourism development. Minister Morato and I today had extensive discussions regarding various areas of recovery and the reimagining of tourism as a driver of economic growth and transformation," said Bartlett.

"We discussed the role of the United Nations World Tourism Organization as a critical institution for securing the academic and practical applications necessary to redevelop the new tourism that will enable small countries and small and medium-sized players to have a more equitable experience and to recover much of the lost revenue," he added.

Bartlett also used the opportunity to invite Morato to Jamaica's first-ever Global Tourism Resilience Day, scheduled for February 17th, 2022, at the World Expo in Dubai. The day will focus on the ability of countries to build capacity to respond to international and global shocks and be able to predict with greater certainty their responses. It will also aid countries in understanding and mitigating the effects of these shocks on their development, but most importantly, it will help them manage and recover quickly after these shocks.

"Jamaica is indeed a thought leader in this area, and we are committed to working with all our partners to build a stronger, more effective, and resilient world that can respond better to shocks that will come as we continue on this journey of life," expressed Bartlett.