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JAM | Jan 13, 2023

Bartlett updates Parliament on tourism sector

/ Our Today

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Strong rebound continues and 8,000 workers onboarded to tourism pension scheme

Edmund Bartlett, minister of tourism. (Photo: JIS)

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett has updated the Jamaican Parliament on the sector’s positive performance for 2022, saying the strong rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic-induced economic fallout, is continuing.

He disclosed that the sector generated earnings of US$3.64 billion in 2022, adding: “We ended the year equalling the record-breaking earnings of tourism of US$3.64 billion, and the [2022/23] fiscal year, which I will report on when we make our [2023/24] Budget presentation. It is going to show US$4.2 billion earnings in tourism, which would be US$500 million more than 2019, which is the best year in our history.”

Addressing Tuesday’s (January 10) sitting of the House of Representatives, Bartlett boasted the 2022-23 winter season has so far started with a bang with January’s figures to date showing a whopping 463 per cent increase over last year and 29 percentage points growth over 2019.

Regarding the tourism pension scheme, Bartlett announced that nearly 8,000 workers are now contributing to the plan, generating savings of J$350 million. He told Parliament that the scheme is on track to reach 10,000 members during the current winter season.

Growing pension contributors

According to the minister, “the potential for this pension programme is to have more than 350,000 members, and that savings will bring billions of dollars, which will now become a pool of affordable funds for capital development and on-lending for various other investment projects… . And we know in economics that one of the bases on which solid growth is predicated is when the domestic savings of a country [are] converted into investment.”

The pension scheme is designed to cover all tourism workers, aged 18 to 59, whether permanent, contract or self-employed. They include hotel workers as well as persons employed in related industries, such as craft vendors, tour operators, red cap porters, contract carriage operators and workers at attractions.

The benefits will be payable at age 65 years or older.

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