Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett (3rd left) engages in a brief discussion with Tourism Action Club members from Calabar High School on his arrival at the Montego Bay Convention Centre on Friday, September 26, 2025 for the World Tourism Day 2025 Youth Forum. Sharing in the moment (left) is Director of Tourism, Donovan White. This flagship event, staged as a buildup to and as part of efforts to recognize World Tourism Day (September 27), was designed to engage students, particularly members of the Tourism Action Clubs (TACs) from across the island, in meaningful dialogue on tourism’s evolving role in national and global development. The Youth Forum focused on the theme selected by UN Tourism for World Tourism Day 2025: “Tourism and Sustainable Transformation.”
Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett has revealed that the Tourism Action Club (TAC) initiative in high schools and tertiary institutions locally is being leveraged as an important platform to foster human capital development in the tourism industry, especially in the areas of management and customer service.
Minister Bartlett has underscored that TAC students have access to programmes offered through the Jamaica Centre for Tourism Innovation (JCTI), and once successful, they are certified by the American Hotel and Lodging Educational Institute (AHLEI) with an internationally recognised Associate Degree in Customer Service as well as the HEART/NSTA Sixth Form Pathway II Programme (SFP2P).
The Minister made the announcement while addressing over 230 TAC members from some 24 clubs across the island, during the World Tourism Day 2025 Youth Forum at the Montego Bay Convention Centre on Friday, September 26, 2025. Minister Bartlett said “all of this is to build out a new cadre of tourism workers with the capacity and stackable credentials to take their place in the highest levels of employment.”
Mr. Bartlett said while the forum was designed to commemorate World Tourism Day, (September 27) under the theme ‘Tourism and Sustainable Transformation,’ “I want you to focus a lot more on transformation because it is the final product which enables us to grasp the real importance and value of the industry itself.” He awakened the minds of the students to the fact that Ocho Rios, Montego Bay and Negril were all once sleepy villages before tourism transformed them into the important and bustling tourism and commercial centres they are today. He also cited Treasure Beach and the importance of Falmouth because of cruise tourism.
“In terms then of the geophysical areas and the transformational power of tourism, that’s evident, but what does it do for people,” Minister Bartlett questioned, as he went on to point out that “it creates wealth and it allows you to create ideas into meaningful, practical elements and products that have a value and a price.”
He maintained that given Jamaica’s assets, “our job must be to build the capacity of our people to add value and to do more and to achieve more, and that’s what our new transformational programme of ‘Local First’ is intending to do.”ADVERTISEMENTMinister Bartlett said it was recognized that sustainability was only meaningful if buttressed by three critical elements which he listed as: a full recognition of the value of the environment and enabling it to be a source of the well-being of people; conversion of the assets of the environment into economic realities for prosperity; and the creation of a community that is conducive to growth and development, while fostering the continued well-being of the people.
He underscored therefore, that “in talking about sustainability and transformation, we’re talking about the environment, the people and the communities.”
A team of tourism officials were on hand to show their support for the World Tourism Day 2025 Youth Forum, held at the Montego Bay Convention Centre on Friday, September 26, 2025. From left are: Executive Director of the Montego Bay Convention Centre, Mureen James; Executive Director, Tourism Enhancement Fund, Dr. Carey Wallace; Director of Tourism, Donovan White; Chief Technical Director in the Ministry of Tourism, David Dobson; Minister of State, Ministry of Tourism, Tova Hamilton and Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett.
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