MONTEGO BAY, St James — The decision by the United States of America to discontinue testing for COVID-19 as a requisite to enter that country, starting Sunday, has received an overwhelming welcome from stakeholders in the tourism sector who are hopeful that it will bolster visitor arrivals.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett was optimistic that the move will not only impact Americans, but tourists who transit through America.

“We welcome the decision by the US to discontinue the requirement for testing as a prerequisite to enter the US. This will have a positive impact on visitor arrivals as a number of tourists from other areas, who have to transit through the United States to Jamaica, will be better facilitated,” Bartlett told the Jamaica Observer.

“This will have a positive impact on the projections for summer, and the recovery overall,” he added.

For Clifton Reader, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), the writing was on the wall.

“This is something that we knew was gonna come because there has been representation from people in the US to the [Joe] Biden Administration. JHTA wasn’t really part of that advocacy but we knew it was coming basically. I guess when Jamaica cleared the entry for Jamaicans to come in without it, the Government, different people, knew it was just a matter of time before the US did the same,” Reader said. “Remember Canada and the UK did it months and months ago. So I think it was just a matter of time for the US, really.”

Reader was, however, resolute in his stance that workers in the hotel sector should continue wearing masks and sanitising, stressing the importance of mitigating any risk.

“One thing that I would still ask people to do is to make sure they maintain mask-wearing, especially for my employees throughout the industry. We are stressing that they continue to wear their masks, especially those who are somewhat at risk, whether they have underlying conditions or whatever. I mean, we shouldn’t necessarily see this a big celebration or whatever. We should see that there might be more risk out there, even though it’s measured risk, and we have to mitigate against the risk,” Reader cautioned.

“I don’t want people to just jump up and say, you know, things are open, the prime minister said it. It’s personal responsibility, and we have to take personal responsibility. So if we know we have older employees, we know we have employees who are at risk, we must ensure that we encourage them along the way to wear the mask because it has been proven that mask-wearing works,” Reader said.

He also insisted that people should continue to observe the sanitisation protocol.

“I still sanitise. Everybody going through my buffet has to sanitise their hands going on to the buffet because cases of diarrhoea and stuff like that have been almost eliminated in most of our properties over the last two years because of all these good practices we’ve been putting in place. So I know a lot of people probably want to do the rejoicing thing, but every time you open up comes with responsibility. We must not shirk that responsibility, or else we could see problems coming down,” he said.

On the other hand, he pointed to the elimination of the cost of testing that tourists will now enjoy following the removal of the requirement.

“I think cost wise, to the clients as well, it’s going to be some kind of reduction,” the JHTA president said.

The tourism minister pointed out that it would at times cost upwards of US$200 for individuals to be tested in order to travel.

“Antigen is in the region of US$50, but PCR can go up to US$200, depending on where you are, which country you’re taking the test,” Bartlett said.

“It will have a strong impact also on visitors from the US coming to Jamaica. They don’t have now to worry about paying for tests here in Jamaica in order to go back home. So it has a tremendous impact, it will be very valuable for us,” he said.