Developing human resource capacity through education and training, is one way in which Jamaica is building resilience in tourism, says Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister, Hon. Floyd Green.
“Jamaica has had a lot of training systems around tourism because our economy is so strongly built on [the sector],” he noted.
The Minister, who was participating in a panel discussion on Thursday (Feb.16) as part of the inaugural Global Tourism Resilience Conference, cited the work being done by the HEART NSTA Trust, in equipping persons in various skills areas to serve the sector.
He said that the Ministry of Tourism recognised “very early” the importance of building the human resource skills in the sector and has been providing training and certification at various levels including in the communities.
“We started the Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation (JCTI) to focus a lot on the workforce that we already have and ensuring that they have the certification because a lot of them already have the experience,” he noted.
He said that the JCTI programme is also being implemented in various high schools across the island.
Minister Green noted that while community tourism evolves organically, those involved in this aspect of the sector still require training and certification to build capacity.
He pointed out, for example, that in Treasure Beach, an area for which he is Member of Parliament, the training is taken to the people.
He informed that through the HEART NSTA Trust and non-government entities such as BREDS, “we’ve looked at the deficiencies in capacity in the areas and we’ve started training in the community. So instead of having to leave to go externally to get training, you can go to work, come over in the afternoon [and] go back to work, and you get the certification at the end of the [training].”
Another area of building resilience is by creating linkages with other sectors.
“The tourism product is of little value unless you have the inputs that give the community life from tourism, and thankfully, we were a little bit ahead of the game by developing an online platform (Agri Linkages Exchange) that linked our hotels to our farmers,” said Minister Green.
He pointed out that with the COVID-19 pandemic limiting face-to-face contact, the Agri Linkages Exchange platform played an integral role in the sector’s recovery when hotels reopened.
“I think that’s one of the reasons why our recovery has been so robust because as soon as the sector started to rebound, those hotels had a direct link with the people on the ground,” Minister Green noted.
The Global Tourism Resilience Conference concluded on Friday (Feb. 17) after a three-day staging at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Regional Headquarters in Mona, St. Andrew.