THE EDITOR, Madam:

The minister of tourism was given an international award for sustainable tourism. We commend him for an organisation dedicated to the development of sustainable tourism but require more support for communities to participate economically.

There is endorsement of the International Institute for Peace through tourism and other international organisations for the Villages as Businesses programme which provides business development support for training community entrepreneurs, marketing support for projects identified and showing communities how to manage their communities as businesses.

However, it is time for sustainable tourism action from the Ministry of Tourism with his leadership which is long overdue.

Jamaica is like a beautiful hotel from the outside but when it is entered, there are many things needed to upgrade it not only for visitors but for those of us who live here. Our country’s is suffering from serious infrastructure challenges which is affecting many communities from benefiting from an improved lifestyle and enjoying our community lifestyle tours due to garbage everywhere and potholes manholes pollution in some of our rivers and sea which requires serious investment.

We have many professional consultants for community tourism in Jamaica who could be met with to develop an investment project especially from the diaspora and many of our regular visitors are willing to give support too, as required.

We are appealing to the minister of tourism to focus on the investment required for sustainable tourism in Jamaica and collaborate with existing projects and programmes from us as well as other organisations. With his awards, he can get more grant and low-interest funding for Jamaica to become a model sustainable tourism product which we have been advocating for many years with community tourism initiatives.

Visitors want to enjoy our cultural heritage and lifestyle experiences but with the road conditions as we have seen featured in the local media, it is frustrating for them.

DIANA MCINTYRE-PIKE

Villages as Businesses

villagesasbusinesses@yahoo.

com