Thursday’s (March 31) Jamaica Tourism Speed Networking event is shaping up to be a massive one with more than 145 entities and supplies already registered to participate.

More than 50 entities in the tourism sector and 95 suppliers are already on board for this year’s staging, which is taking place at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James, starting at 9:00 am. Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett is expected to deliver the main address at the opening ceremony.

The event is hosted annually by the Tourism Linkages Network (TLN), in collaboration with the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association (JMEA), Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO), Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) and the Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC).

The Speed Networking initiative has over the years, benefited several small and medium-sized tourism enterprises, providing exposure for their businesses and opportunities for contracts.

New element to this year’s staging

Director of TLN, Carolyn McDonald-Riley, has disclosed that a new element of this year’s staging is the provision of information by a number of key stakeholders. She told JIS News that the event is a “business-to-business opportunity where local suppliers meet with our tourism players with a view to supplying them with our tourism products”.

She indicated that there will be a Tourism Workers Pension desk, “where persons will be allowed to come and ask for information and also to sign up if they so require”.

According to McDonald-Riley “We will also have our tourism incentive person from the Ministry [of Tourism] who will be giving information on incentives… and we will also be having the banks. We will have DBJ [Development Bank of Jamaica] and EXIM Bank [National Export-Import Bank of Jamaica] on hand and these are entities that we consider our linkage partners who lend money specifically to the tourism industry at low rates.”