New Jamaican Tourism Minister Set to Restart Community Resort Boards

Jamaica will reestablish local “resort boards” to provide ordinary Jamaicans with input into the country’s tourism initiatives, according to Dr. Wykeham McNeill, the country’s newly appointed minister of tourism and entertainment.

“The boards will play a crucial role in ensuring that the management of the sector is more inclusive and participatory,” McNeill said. “We need to reestablish these boards to ensure that the voices of the people are heard.”

Resort boards representatives will eventually join the ministry’s Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo.), McNeill said. He said the resort boards, which were disbanded in 2008 under the administration of Edmund Bartlett, the country’s previous tourism minister, “would help significantly in ensuring that the process of developing resort areas is managed properly.

“There is a disconnection between the administrators within the sector and the people on the ground,” said McNeill in an interview with the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper. “Unfortunately the deactivation of the resort boards under the previous administration has removed that critical link. We are now holding discussions in a bid to reengage these stakeholders by reestablishing these boards. Once they are revamped, I am convinced that these boards will help significantly in facilitating consultation and they will also ensure that the process of developing resort areas is managed properly.”