Tourism Minister Highlights Role Of Pandemics Coordinator

Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, says the appointment of Dr. Elaine Williams as Coordinator of Pandemics at the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCM) is the first key step to dealing with disruptive forces in tourism.

The appointment of Dr. Williams, a well-known pathologist, comes at a time when the global travel and tourism industry is being affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“Dr. Williams understands the whole business of building clinical resilience. We have brought her on board to track the pandemic and to work with the medical teams locally and those internationally,” Mr. Bartlett told JIS News.

The Minister further outlined that Dr. Williams will also research and gather data that can be valuable to helping countries make decisions about the kind of institutional capacity that they must build in order to detect, mitigate and manage the strains when they come.

The GTRCM, which is based at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, is a tourism resource centre dedicated to conducting policy-relevant research and analysis on destination preparedness, management and recovery due to disruptions and crises that impact tourism and threaten economies and livelihoods.

It involves collaboration with domestic and international policymakers and practitioners at all levels of government, private and non-profit sectors and academia.

Minister Bartlett told JIS News that the relevance of the Centre “is very pronounced now when we have the first mega disruption to hit us in the last 10 years”.

According to the Minister, more persons will be employed at the Centre to deal with other disruptive forces, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, cybercrime, among others.

SOURCE: JIS