Jamaica’s Travel Industry to Churn Out Nearly 60,000 New Jobs in 10 Years

Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett is projecting that the tourism sector will employ an additional 58,000 workers over the next ten years. This, he said, is based on the level and rate of infrastructural development and expansion now taking place in the industry.

Mr. Bartlett said the sector currently has a capacity of some 30,000 rooms and provides direct employment for approximately 80,000 persons, while an additional 180,000 to 200,000 were indirectly employed.

“We are increasing the number of rooms at a rate of 3,000 this year and moving on, hopefully, for the next 10 years, to reach 45,000. I think that we are somewhere about nine per cent at the moment, in terms of total employment of our country. So, what we are talking about then, is an industry which has breadth, width, and potential for great growth,” Mr. Bartlett added.

He however pointed out that the sector could not do it alone, noting that it “fed” by a number of other industries, such as agriculture, manufacturing and transportation. “And so, the competitiveness of tourism is not a function of its own efforts, but is a function of the competitiveness of the feeder industries into it,” the Tourism Minister said.