... Creating the new architecture in fashioning a new experience
MINISTER OF Tourism Edmund Bartlett said building artisan villages in resort townships and restructuring what exists, while maintaining some concepts and developing lines of communication, were all part of creating the new architecture in fashioning a new experience in tourism.
He said his visits to craft markets across Jamaica, speaking to craft traders and producers, was critical to the whole process.
“We want to sensitise more so that people at all levels understand that this new tourism is [a] big trillion dollar business and more countries are now involved in tourism than ever. So the competition for the cruise and stopover people is greater now than it has ever been, and everybody is doing new, fresh things, so we have to do that, too, or else we’re going to be left out,” he said during last week’s tour of the Harbour Street Craft Market in Montego Bay, St James.
While noting that there is much to be done, Bartlett said he had observed an improvement in the quality of craft work on sale in the market but that the stalls were too congested.
The minister was presented with an action plan for the Harbour Street Craft Market by the president of the National Craft Traders and Producers Association, Melody Haughton Adams, who has been a trader in the market for many years.
Among those accompanying Bartlett on his tour were chairman of the Tourism Enhancement Fund, Godfrey Dyer, and chairman of the Tourism Product Development Company, Ian Dear.