Areas of focus include multi-destination tourism, airlift and resilience building

Durrant Pate/Contributor

Jamaica and The Cayman Islands are collaborating on tourism to leverage synergies between both nations to boost their tourism sectors.

The move comes as Jamaica last week welcomed Cayman Airways weekly service from Grand Cayman into the Sangster International Airport in the second city of Montego Bay.

In addition, Cayman Airways will operate daily flights between Grand Cayman and Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport.

Both Caribbean destinations have initiated discussions to facilitate the collaboration and also leverage their strong historical ties. Among the areas being examined for cooperation are multi-destination tourism, airlift, enhancing border protocols, rationalising airspace as well as resilience building.

Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett made the disclosure during a meeting yesterday (August 10) with members of a special delegation from the Cayman Islands, led by Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance & Economic Development Christopher Saunders and Kenneth Bryan, minister of tourism & transport.

Multi-destination tourism major focus

Bartlett revealed that special focus will be placed on multi-destination tourism adding that he will be meeting with key players in the industry in Cayman next month.

According to the tourism minister, “the meeting in Cayman with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), in September, could be the stepping stone for coalescing our position on elements of multi-destination tourism,” noting also that he would be “more so looking at airlift and airline collaboration”.

Bartlett declared that he was “ready to work with Cayman to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with The Cayman Islands in relation to multi-destination tourism” adding that “Jamaica has already signed four similar agreements with Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Panama”.

He explained that, in developing the framework, Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism is seeking to “include The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and Belize, from this side of the Caribbean”.

In the meantime, Bartlett made a call for players in the private sector to develop a special tourism package, with an attractive price, that can be presented to the market to promote multi-destination tourism and enhance the regional tourism product.

Possible join tourism package

He reported that the issue will be further explored at the next meeting of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) in October this year. The CHTA will host the 40th edition of its flagship trade event, Caribbean Travel Marketplace in San Juan, Puerto Rico from October 3 to 5.

In describing the concept of a possible package, Bartlett remarked: “If you buy a trip to Jamaica for US$50 that US$50 takes you into Cayman and into Trinidad.”

He noted that, “that in itself would be an interesting and challenging task because we would then have to look at price differentiation in relation to what the product offering is”.

Such packages, Bartlett feels, will help to fuel the development of multi-destination tourism across the region, adding that it is “not beyond us”.