UNWTO Secretary General H.E. Zurab Pololikashvili will be in attendance at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, which will play host to the second annual Global Tourism Resilience Conference from February 16-17.

The conference is set to feature networking opportunities, panel discussions, presentations and debates on matters relating to making the tourism sector more resilient and ‘future-proofing’ the sector for various potential disruptions.

“We are setting the stage for another mega conference geared towards safeguarding our most valuable tourism industry. Building the capacity to respond to and recover from disruptions has become even more critical and the topics and expert thoughts that will be shared over two days will contribute to our resilience building,” said Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett.

Pololikashvili will be a part of a critical panel on the first day of the conference discussing ‘Funding Tourism Resilience’ that is also scheduled to feature Dr Nigel Clarke, minister of finance and the public service; Sergio Díaz-Granados, executive president, Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean Women in tourism Resilience; Oscar Avalle, country representative, El Salvador and Northern Caribbean, Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean; Dona Regis-Prosper, secretary-general, Caribbean Tourism Organization; and Nataliya Mylenko, lead economist for the Caribbean, World Bank.

“The Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre continues to be a beacon of tourism resilience and this conference is a further step in the right direction in building capacity. Global disruptions have shown the need for us to build capacity in tourism as it remains one of the most vulnerable industries,” said executive director of the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre, Professor Lloyd Waller.

The first global tourism resilience conference was held at The University of the West Indies in
Kingston, Jamaica last year. Following a resolution by the United Nations in 2022 to observe Global Resilience Day on February 17, Day 2 of the conference will be celebrated as such and will feature an tourism awards gala to recognise major contributors to the sector and building resiliency worldwide.