Western Bureau: Outgoing Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) President Omar Robinson is bemoaning the stranglehold the COVID-19 virus has had on the financial health and operations of his organisation. Speaking at the JHTA annual general...
WESTERN BUREAU: Royal Caribbean, MSC and Norwegian (NCL) have already submitted temporary schedules for their return to Jamaica, but the world’s largest cruise ship operator, Carnival, is yet to tender its intention to the Port Authority of Jamaica...
WESTERN BUREAU: Working in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW), new Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) president, Clifton Reader, is proposing his organisation acts as COVID-19 ambassadors in local communities....
WESTERN BUREAU: Director of Tourism Donovan White says that while forward bookings for the winter 2020-2021 tourist season give reason for optimism, there remains a high level of nervousness within a sector still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic...
WESTERN BUREAU: Joan and Elvis Clarke have inherited “a mini Dunn’s River Falls”, which has literally claimed ownership of their home. It only has to rain for 20 minutes for their Rosemount Gardens home to be flooded out. Their ordeal can be...
WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica’s queen of cutwork embroidery, the doyenne of fashion, Olga Francis Keane is dead. She was 87. Francis Keane, renowned for dressing women from all strata of the society, including Queen Elizabeth II, former Prime Minister...
WESTERN BUREAU: As Jamaica continues to lose millions of dollars to destinations such as Cancun and Riviera Maya, Mexico, some of the country’s top-producing travel agents have accused the Government of rejecting tourists. The agents, part of the...
WESTERN BUREAU: Rajiv Johnson’s signature drink is tagged South Side, a mixture of gin, mint, lime juice and simple syrup. It’s not too fresh, not too sweet. It’s the opposite of a mojito, and is much smoother because it has gin instead of rum....
WESTERN BUREAU: The Holness administration is being urged by hotel interests to expand its approved regime on COVID-19 evaluation for travellers to include rapid tests that would be cheaper but less foolproof than the polymerase chain reaction (PCR...
WESTERN BUREAU: DNA samples taken from six persons of interest and close associates of murdered American model Desiree Gibbon have not led to the arrest or identity of the New Yorker’s killer three years after her death. The body of Gibbon, who was...
WESTERN BUREAU: American model Desiree Gibbon’s unsolved murder has forced her family to call for the intervention of Prime Minister-designate Andrew Holness three years since the heinous killing. Desiree’s mother, Andrea Gibbon, in an open letter...
WESTERN BUREAU: An industrious Jamaican has been inducted into the Florida International University (FIU) Dean’s High Achievers Society, having obtained a 3.97 grade point average (GPA). Master of Business Administration (MBA) graduate, Robert...
WESTERN BUREAU: Praising the success of the Tourism Resilient Corridors (TRC) concept, stakeholders in the hospitality industry are calling for the template to be replicated across all communities in Jamaica. “It literally takes a village to manage...
WESTERN BUREAU: Extended voting hours and priority treatment for senior citizens and the disabled are among a list of requests the Jamaica Umbrella Groups of Churches (JUGC) has made days before Jamaicans go to the polls on Thursday. The churches,...
WESTERN BUREAU: The Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) Tamika Davis is hoping that a burning desire for change in Hanover Western will propel her to victory come next week when she will battle People’s National Party (PNP) incumbent Ian Hayles....
WESTERN BUREAU: Forty-eight years after first winning the Trelawny Northern seat on a People’s National Party (PNP) ticket, Desmond Leakey stood on the Falmouth Municipal Corporation’s staircase Tuesday afternoon, endorsing incumbent Victor Wright...
WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica’s key tourism stakeholder organisations are taking the Government to task for barring tourists from leaving hotel properties. In a joint letter, dated August 14, chairman of the COVID-19 Resilient Corridor, John G. Byles;...
WESTERN BUREAU: Using the controversial July 31 Supreme Court ruling in a case that centred on the wearing of dreadlocks and the right to self-expression, Rastafarians charged on Tuesday that religious adherents continue to face discrimination....
WESTERN BUREAU: Five working days have turned into two months and no visible end in sight for craft merchants who were promised ‘We Care’ grants by the Government as the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions walloped the Jamaican economy. The group of...
WESTERN BUREAU: The man tagged ‘Mr Virtual’, Freddie McGregor, broke the mould last Thursday night, delivering his first live performance since January, at the Moon Palace Jamaica in Ocho Rios, St Ann. McGregor, who has become a staple on some of...
WESTERN BUREAU: The Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) says the Level 3 United States travel advisory published on Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was an upgrade from Level 4, which advises Americans ‘NOT TO...
WESTERN BUREAU: As Jamaica’s COVID-19 numbers continue to rise, the impact is being felt by passengers arriving at Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay. For three weeks in a row, passengers have complained that they have had to wait for up...
WESTERN BUREAU: The blast that killed more than 70 people and injured 4,000 in Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday was felt as far as the Republic of Cyprus and is being described as an “atomic bomb”. Speaking with The Gleaner from Toronto, Canada, Tuesday...
WESTERN BUREAU: Long before Buju Banton’s I am Jamaican Festival song won the hearts of locals and members of the diaspora, the woman responsible for giving the region Island Dolls was busy manufacturing masks depicting the island’s rich culture....
WESTERN BUREAU: Fighting to regain its footing from a backlog of thousands of COVID-19 test samples, the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) says it is courting five private laboratories to help slash delays in garnering coronavirus results. The...
