Gay Nagle Myers
With Hurricanes Irma and Maria not far behind in tourism's rearview mirror, the progress report from Jamaica's tourism minister Edmund Bartlett regarding the new Global Centre for Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, is timely.
The minister said that plans for the center, announced during the U.N. World Tourism Organization's Global Conference on Jobs and Inclusive Growth in Montego Bay last November, are moving forward.
The facility will be operational in September, with an official launch scheduled for January during the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association's Caribbean Travel Marketplace at the Montego Bay Convention Center.
The center will serve as a resource to carry out research and analysis to help destinations prepare for, manage, track, communicate and recover from disruptions or crises that impact tourism and threaten economies and livelihoods, according to Bartlett.
"In today's world, tourism has become an important, if not vital, contributor to peace-building, the sharing of cultures, and creating opportunities for mutual understanding," Bartlett said.
He said that the center "will guard Jamaica and our partners throughout the Caribbean from global disasters ranging from hurricanes, climate change, public health crises and tsunamis to cybercrimes, cyberattacks, pandemics and terrorism."
The center will include a Sustainable Tourism Observatory, which will assist policymakers and businesses develop strategies to support a more competitive global tourism sector.
"Our goal is to build the capacity to anticipate what will happen by tracking disruptions to withstand them, by managing them when they arrive, and by recovering not just in real time but in Nano-time to ensure the stability of our region," Bartlett said.
The Center already has taken proactive steps to strengthen disaster preparedness in Jamaica.
Satellite phones were procured for destination managers in the resort locations of Negril, Montego Bay, Kingston, Ocho Rios, Falmouth, Portland and St. Thomas. The phones will improve communications between the Ministry and its agencies, tourism emergency operations centers and the National Emergency Operations Center.
The Global Centre will be governed by a board of directors and an advisory committee.
There will be a membership program so that companies can support the center's work and participate in its research and resilience programs.