Jamaica Product Exchange 2018 kicks off

THE Guyana Chronicle’s Pepperpot Magazine, over the last week, attended a media trip in honour of the 2018 Jamaica Product Exchange (JAPEX). The trip, which saw attendance from travel writers and media entities from Canada, the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, included tours and other curated experiences aimed at showcasing the best of Jamaica. This series will, over the next few weeks, explore various aspects of Jamaica’s rich culture which were showcased on this trip.

(MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica)- ON September 24, the 2018 Jamaica Product Exchange (JAPEX) opened its doors with a packed schedule of marketing and networking opportunities for tourism stakeholders.

The two-day event, which started in 1990, is hosted annually by the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), in association with the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) and is dubbed “the single most important business generator for Jamaica’s tourism industry”. Much like Guyana’s own recently launched Guyana Trade and Investment Exhibition (GUYTIE), which created networking opportunities for Caribbean investors to visit the country and form investment partnerships, JAPEX focuses on the tourism industry and brings together tour operators, travel agents, travel media and other stakeholders to network with over 200 of the island’s leading tourism suppliers and conduct business negotiations.

The success of JAPEX over its 28-year lifespan-due, in part, to the immense opportunities it creates for businesses to showcase their products and services and form strong partnerships- is just one of the secret ingredients to Jamaica’s robust tourism industry.
At the opening ceremony of JAPEX 2018, President of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), Omar Robinson, said “For Jamaica, we are on a mission to showcase the best of our country and we know our visitors will be truly impressed by the new properties and attractions, the renovations and extensions of old favourites and the amazing manufacturers and service providers that make ‘Brand Jamaica’ so special. These are the elements that have brought record numbers of visitors to our shores this year.”
The island saw 4.3 million tourists visiting the country in the year 2017. For 2018, it has seen 2.9 million tourists thus far, an increase of 5.4 per cent. Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, giving feature remarks at a media breakfast hosted at the Jewel Grande Montego Bay Resort and Spa, explained that efforts will continue to make the island the ideal vacation destination.

For this winter alone- one of the island’s peak seasons- Jamaica will make 1.3 million seats available for incoming passengers from North, South and Latin America as well as the Caribbean via air travel. The country will also look to work with its private partners in the area of accommodation to add 7,500 new rooms by the year 2021.

“Jamaica has been known for three S’s – sand, sea and sun… now we are adding safe secure and seamless… we will enable a standard and quality that will be across the board with minimum standards for accommodation, whether it be formal or casual because we are very concerned about destination reputation and so we are going to require all our partners to subscribe and contribute to what is required to ensure the highest level of integrity in the experience that we offer in this country,” the minister said.

These efforts will also be complemented by building on the human capacity, the introduction of a pension fund for workers in the tourism industry, as well as, the launch of a comprehensive website that will provide content development and distribution as well as connectivity to all elements of the tourism market.

The island’s unrelenting drive to better its product is, perhaps, the reason Jamaica received the Caribbean’s Leading Destination Award at the 2018 World Travel Awards held on September 22 at Sandals Montego Bay. Tourism partners within the island also racked up several other Caribbean Awards including the Best Tourist Board (Jamaica Tourist Board), Caribbean’s Leading Home Port (Montego Bay) Caribbean’s Leading Adventure Tourist Attraction (Dolphin Cove Jamaica) and many more.

SUPPORTING SMALL ENTERPRISES
In addition to selling ‘Brand Jamaica’, JAPEX 2018 also provided a space for small enterprises, which undoubtedly contribute to the country’s cultural blueprint.

Andrew Duhaney has been an artist for more than 40 years. He started working with signs and posters but moved into oil painting where the majority of his income now comes from. Duhaney said that he was contacted by the organisers to be part of JAPEX to showcase his work and he is very grateful. “This is a breakthrough for me. I am glad for this opportunity because I always wanted my work to go abroad for people to see what I am capable of,” he said.

Omar Daley makes bags and other items from coconut straw and white thatch. He has practised this craft for more than 20 years. “The response is crazy- that would be the word… I believe it is great, I hope that more persons like me would get the opportunity to display their skills,” he said.

Yvette Robinson started doing craft more than 20 years ago as well. Recently, she stumbled across the art of Hardanger embroidery, and after falling in love with it, she began to focus her talents on bringing pieces of art to life using the art form. “It is a very beautiful type of art. I started doing this last year January- it is a group of us. We started working with [the Tourism Product Development Company]. They were the ones who offered us the training which we made use of and now they are helping us to get our product out there,” she said. “Something like this is good. I have been in craft for years but I have never been to an event like this so these events give persons like me an opportunity to get their work out there, but you need persons who really have the skill to come out and be a part,” she said.

These three artists will all be part of the soon-to-be-launched Artisan Village in Falmouth, Jamaica, which will join the long list of engaging cultural attractions of the island.
According to Omar Robinson, the JHTA has, over the past decade, built on the JAPEX product and it is now “a perfect mix of exposition and workshops, business and leisure.” JAPEX 2018 included appointments, business sessions, product updates and site visits as well as workshops that focused on marketing small properties, interior decorating, energy efficiency and revenue management which Robinson described as “key areas germane to running a successful enterprise.”