“The worst thing that can happen from this, is a hotel like this comes in, Princess opens, all these things happen and our people are still poor. Let us not make that happen. Let us all be positively impacted from this”.
These were the words of Dr. Carey Wallace, Executive Director of the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), addressing residents of Hanover during the Environmental Impact Assessment presentation for the Grand Palladium Hotel’s Phase 2 expansion in Lucea on Thursday evening.
“When I think of an environmental impact, positive environmental impact, basically meaning the impact on the life of the people in the community. And one of the things that I’m urging everybody on this side to consider is all the programmes that we do to facilitate and uplift more people, to be able to supply the hotel sector, to be able to get jobs in the hotel sector.”
Dr. Wallace also highlighted the benefits of the Tourism Enhancement Fund’s Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation (JCTI), which upskills Jamaicans to qualify for top positions in hotels.
“We partner with international accreditation bodies and we upskill Jamaicans so they can get the top jobs in all the hotels. They don’t need to have foreigners coming in and taking those jobs. So JCTI, remember that,” the Westmoreland native said.
He also addressed the Tourism Linkages Network, which has faced criticism from Hanover farmers for not connecting them as suppliers for the hotels being constructed in the parish.
“The second program that we have is the Tourism Linkages Program, the Tourism Linkage Network. And what that does is create more entrepreneurs to supply the hotels and tourism, all the food that they need, all the manufacturing products that they need, all these new pharmaceuticals they need, all the spa products they need. We want more of those to be supplied by Jamaicans,” the Mannings High School old boy said.
Dr. Wallace encouraged entrepreneurs to take advantage of low-interest loans from the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank, facilitated by the Tourism Enhancement Fund.
“Not only do we have programmes that upskill, abd are training people to supply them, we also have a new facility where we put $1 billion in the EXIM Bank to un-lend to the small and medium tourism enterprises so that you can build on the capacity to supply the hotels like this,” he explained.
“I am from Westmoreland; I’m now in Kingston with the Tourism Enhancement Fund and I’m watching all the influx of construction of hotels, the influx of opportunities. And the best thing that we can have, that impact on our people is for our people to upskill themselves, to build on the capacity to then supply these hotels that are coming in,” Dr Wallace added.
He also urged the audience to engage with the HEART Trust skills training agency, describing it as a “key facilitator.”
“Look them up online; the opportunities are here,” he added.
