Jamaica Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, said that a number of key global personalities and professionals are expressing interest to participate, at a very high level, in structuring the region’s first Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre.
The centre, which was first announced during last year’s staging of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Global Conference, will be tasked with creating, producing, and generating toolkits, guidelines, and policies to handle the recovery process for states affected by disasters such as earthquakes, cybercrimes and cyber-attacks, terrorism, and health issues that are pandemic or epidemic.
The Minister, who is currently in London, met with representatives from Bournemouth University and Jacob Media Group who expressed interest in the concept of the centre.
“I think that the centre will begin as a research and development centre, but it will be strengthened by technical capabilities as well as information and data management and communication,” said Minister Bartlett.
He further noted that “a marketing element is intended also, but the critical area will be ensuring that countries, around the world and particularly the Caribbean, are provided with as many tools, technical information and some levels of funding for mitigation activities and for management systems.”
The centre will be housed at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus and will include a Sustainable Tourism Observatory, which will assist preparedness, management and recovery of crises which impact tourism and threaten economies and livelihoods.
The UNWTO will spearhead with Jamaica the building out of the facility and assist in the solicitation of resources from a number of multilateral partners and other countries that have an interest in resilience building.