$500 million to improve housing for tourism workers

Through the Tourism Enhancement Fund's partnership with the New Social Housing Programme, $500 million will be allocated to improve housing conditions for tourism workers living in substandard circumstances.

Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett made the disclosure as he opened the 2024-25 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

"This strategy of reaching to the very poor tourism worker is one that had been tugging at me for a while. I go to see them work and I recognise that some leave the palatial settings to [a humble one] and that cannot be right. That is not the right picture," Bartlett said.

"The tourism partners... I just met with the last of the group on Friday last... have now agreed that they will come in and match, so we can provide as much as 100 little houses for tourism workers of that nature in this financial year," he added. Bartlett informed that 3,000 housing units are to be provided by the hotel investors.

"One of the new ones in Hanover will provide 500 units for the workers right there in Green Island. Next door to them, an expansion is going to happen for 600 units, again for workers in Hanover," the minister stated.

"We are looking at discussing now with a particular investor in St Ann, which is going to be the biggest investment in the history of tourism in Jamaica. We will talk about it a little later when certain other things are done, but what it promises to do is to build an entire village with facilities for fishermen, schools for the workers and for the community," he added.

Bartlett also announced that approximately 1,500 new jobs are to come on stream in the tourism industry with the opening of two new hotels in western Jamaica. Bartlett said that the new positions will result from the completion of more than 2,000 new rooms this year.

"We will open ... 750 rooms at RIU, Trelawny, and later in the month of May we will open [Princess Grand Jamaica] in Green Island [Hanover], with 1,000 rooms, and that will provide a new wave of some 1,500 new jobs for people," he said.