A Jamaican hotel is the safest place to be – tourism stakeholder
Published:Monday | December 14, 2020 | 2:38 PM
It is almost six months now since the return of international arrivals to Jamaica and Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) president Clifton Reader is proud of the exceptional level of compliance with the COVID health protocols in the tourism resilient corridors.
In line with the guidelines mandated by the Ministry of Health and Wellness, hoteliers in the corridors have been strictly enforcing established protocols to keep guests and staff safe.
See more here: go-jamaica.com/myjamaica/
"This has resulted in no confirmed transmission to date of the virus from visitors staying on the corridors to the local population," said Reader.
What is the resilient corridor
Mandated by the Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, the creator of the Tourism Resilient Corridors, Jamaica now boasts three areas, encompassing much of the northern coast, southern coast, and New Kingston that have been fighting the spread of COVID-19 head on. 
IN PHOTO: Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett takes a temperature test
In these corridors, tourism businesses must be certified by the TPDCo for having implemented to the letter, all the COVID-19 prevention protocols. Those internal systems are enhanced with governmental surveillance and enforcement to ensure compliance.
The move has been adopted by all stakeholders in the sector, with Sandals Resorts International being one of the biggest proponents.
The hotel group’s chief operating officer, Shawn DaCosta, told The Gleaner, that despite the massive disruption of the tourism industry worldwide, the appetite for travelling has not dampened.
“The appetite for travelling has not been dampened…that is what we have been getting from the market,” he stated.
“The United States market is going to travel…the US market we know wants to travel as people have been telling us of their desire to travel. This is what we have been getting from right across the states.”
DaCosta noted that the concern about guests coming into the island with the coronavirus should be weighed against the reality that “persons don’t travel if they know that they are sick”.
“People are travelling because they know that they are healthy,” he added. “Even a COVID-19 hotspot like Florida…people are using it mainly as a gateway to come to Jamaica and are not necessarily coming in from Florida.”
He revealed that SRI has not been coming across guests in the hotels that are sick or are showing symptoms associated with COVID-19, noting that “we are actually seeing a decline in the number of persons who would normally be coming to our nurses’ station for even a blood pressure check”.
Health is number one objective
The health of the population is unquestionably the number one objective, said the JHTA president.
"Given that fact, our insistence on both staff and visitors complying with all our protocols has worked remarkably well,” he said.
The JHTA head added that so well have the resilient corridors and the established protocols been working, that staff members have now been recruited as part of a COVID-19 ambassador programme, where they will take what they have learned inside the hotels into the wider communities to assist in mitigating the spread of the deadly pandemic.
“Many have pointed out that it is likely that tourism businesses in Jamaica are some of the safest places to be, due to our commitment to the management of our protocols,” he added.
Frequent inspections
According to the JHTA president, businesses on the island’s resilient corridors are among the most inspected by regulators, adding that since COVID-19, the country’s tourism stakeholders have been held to high account by both the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo), supported by the Jamaica Constabulary Force.
Chief operating officer of the newly formed Arya Resorts Management Group and Immediate Past President of the JHTA, Omar Robinson concurred, stating that the “the principles of our Resilient Corridors have done so well, they should be replicated across all communities of our country”.
“It’s time for us to band together to protect our communities by firstly protecting ourselves,” he noted.|
IN PHOTO: JHTA president Clifton Reader and past president Omar Robinson
“But we must do it while allowing our economy to return to some semblance of buoyancy, which means that tourism, manufacturing, distribution, transportation, services etc. must all come back online, but doing so with the established COVID-19 protocols and clear responses, with surgical precision to infection spikes, entrenched in every part of the processes for the protection of everyone.”
He added: “If we truly put lives first, then we can see that lives depend on managing the spread of the virus whilst responsibly managing our nation’s economic recovery. There is no health without food and shelter as well.”