Bartlett calls for resilience fund to aid tourism-dependent nations

Jamaica Tourism Minister today issued a call for creation of a global tourism resilience fund to support tourism-dependent nations.

The call came as key players in tourism from around the world, including the Caribbean and Africa, devoted the third day of the first-ever Global Tourism Resilience Conference to continuing discussions on the: Road to Global Sustainability and Development.

Global tourism stakeholders and policymakers commemorated the first official Global Tourism Resilience Day as the Minister declared the need for a fund that will support countries dependent on tourism during periods of disruption.

Hon. Minister Edmund Bartlett expressed that “while we talk about building resilience for tourism we have to focus in the wider perspective on social, economic, political, health and security disruptions.”

However, he outlined that the most important of all was building human capacity to “predict, mitigate, manage disruptions when they arise, recover quickly and to thrive thereafter.”

He underscored the need to also build financial resilience while highlighting tourism’s responsibility in enabling highly tourism dependent countries “to be able to gain an insight into their own capacity to grow, to expand and to enjoy prosperity.” To this end, Mr. Bartlett made the call for the establishment of the special tourism resilience fund.

He said:

“We as an industry have the capacity to enable this fund to happen seamlessly because we are the most consumption-driven activity on planet earth.”

The Jamaica Tourism Minister indicated that one way in which the fund could be financed is through a voluntary Resilience Tip given by the 1.4 billion consuming travelers and “that contribution stays in the recipient countries and build that fund to enable capacity for resilience.”

General Manager for the Caribbean, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Mr. Tariq Ali also underscored the importance of building tourism resilience. He warned that even as tourism was recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, “While we would like to see more economies diversifying, a high-performing tourism sector is needed to see further economic growth and recovery.”

He therefore warned that “we must be cautious while optimistic” as there were still several threats that could undermine achievements made so far.