Government Moves to Replace 72-Year-Old Tourism Law Under Tourism 3.0 Push

Jamaica’s tourism industry is being lined up for what could be its largest legal reform in decades, after Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett announced plans to scrap the current Tourism Act and introduce new legislation as part of a broad sector shake-up.

The proposal is being framed as the biggest structural policy change since the law was put in place 72 years ago under the arrangement that established the Jamaica Tourist Board.

Speaking on Thursday at the Tourism Enhancement Fund’s Speed Networking event at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, Bartlett said the change is a key piece of the Government’s Tourism 3.0 agenda, which is intended to leave a bigger share of tourism income with Jamaicans.

“Tourism must be first for the people of Jamaica and then for our guests that we bring internationally to our shores,” Bartlett said.

He said the administration plans to replace the existing framework with a Tourism Authority Act designed for today’s industry and better aligned with local suppliers, manufacturers, creatives and entrepreneurs.

“Since then, we have morphed into a tourism ministry with agencies, but we still have the Tourist Board Act,” Bartlett said. “So the first part of reimagining and getting Tourism 3.0 is a repealing of that act, a revision of that act, and the creation of a Tourism Authority Act.”

Bartlett argued that while visitor activity has expanded quickly, Jamaica has not built local production capacity at the same pace, with more than two-thirds of the goods and services used by the sector still being imported.

“We have been regarded as a country of samples. Samples cannot satisfy the needs of tourism,” he said. “We need sufficiency of supplies. We need reliability of supplies.”

He added that the Government is assessing legal, tax and financing options to help Jamaicans supply more of the sector and keep more tourism-generated revenue circulating in the domestic economy.

“The wealth of tourism is in the supply side,” he said. “The dollar that the plane brings when it lands does not go back on the next flight, but stays here in Jamaica.”

Bartlett also disclosed that talks have already started with banks and regional interests on special financing models for tourism-linked suppliers and businesses.

He further said the Inter-American Development Bank has agreed to finance a regional study on tourism demand and supply patterns across the Caribbean.

Kathryn Silvera, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association, backed the proposed legal reform and said the revised law should include stronger measures to drive local procurement by tourism entities.

“I think that we would like to see that [that] act would have a little bit more teeth in it,” Silvera said. “Sometimes words aren’t sufficient,” she added, while suggesting that tourism incentives should be connected to how much goods and services are sourced locally.

Silvera said manufacturers also need to strengthen output capacity and provide clearer industry data.

“When you hear about Tourism 3.0, we have to be part of that by playing our part as well,” she said.

Bartlett said Tourism 3.0 will only work through cross-government coordination, naming agriculture, manufacturing, health, education, national security and local government among the ministries that must be involved.

“There is no tourism without everyone,” he said.