Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, says 60 percent of the country’s tourism workers are vaccinated. In an update in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, October 13, Minister Bartlett said the vaccination of tourism workers is integral in the full recovery of the sector.
The Minister noted that the inoculation rate among tourism workers was more than double the national average, adding that a great fraction of the sector’s workers are back on the job.
“Our target is to ensure that 170,000 tourism workers are vaccinated and protected from the possible harm that can come from contracting the deadly COVID-19 virus and its variants. This will aid in our recovery efforts for the sector and by extension the country,” he said.
Mr. Bartlett said that recently the Ministry increased its efforts to create a safer tourism product by building a Tourism Vaccination Task Force which is co-chaired by the Tourism Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Jennifer Griffith, and President of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), Clifton Reader; to promote the vaccination of tourism workers islandwide.
He notified that they are being hosted in collaboration with the Private Sector Vaccine Initiative, (PSVI), the Ministry of Health and Wellness, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), and various tourism stakeholders, both within the public and private sectors.
While reiterating that the health and safety of front-line workers, citizens, and visitors are important. The Minister emphasised that the Health Ministry’s robust health and security protocol, the Tourism COVID-19 Resilient Corridor, which has seen a very low infection rate of 0.6 percent, and our Jamaica CARES programme, have earned Jamaica the admiration of local and international partners.
