Hawthorne wants answers from Bartlett
NERRIS HAWTHORNE, the chairman of the Lucea Development Initiative, says stakeholders in Hanover are still awaiting details of the roles and functions of the Destination Assurance Councils (DACs), which were recently launched by Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.
Last week Tuesday, Bartlett announced during the launch of the DACs in Kingston that they would replace resort boards as the “bona fide bodies, empowered to identify the needs of the industry and monitor the progress of developmental initiatives” in the island’s resort areas, as well as Falmouth.
The councils will comprise senior parish representatives of key ministries, departments and agencies, which are vital to the execution of resort development, and include chairman of the local authorities, tourism stakeholders, and a chairperson appointed by the minister. But according to Hawthorne, the information regarding the councils has not been officially received.
“We don’t know anything about it ... All we have heard is that it is a name that is going to replace the resort board. Surely, I would expect that things would be done in a professional way so that the people who were members of the resort board would now know that there is another agency or board that replaces that. And, we would like to have more details from the minister himself; you can’t just read a few sentences in a newspaper and think that we know anything about it,” Hawthorne said.
“I would like to know if it is the same area that the resort board covered ... I really want to know the difference between this board and the old board. What does this one stand for? How can we use it? What difference it will make? The objectives ... but we have to be told about it in a sensible way, not just read a few sentences in a newspaper,” added Hawthorne.