Jamaica is trying to cash in on the multi-billion-dollar health and wellness tourism sector that several Caribbean countries are turning to in order to boost visitor numbers, but it won’t be traditional medicine it plans to use to reach a high in tourist arrivals.
Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett said Jamaica’s lush and rustic southwestern coast is ideally suited for the concept of “cannabis-infused tourism” where products made from the herb would play a major part in the tourism sector.
Health and wellness tourism has been identified as one of the key areas of focus under the ministry’s plan to grow visitor arrivals to five million annually, generating earnings of US$5 billion by 2021.
Speaking at Canex Jamaica, the first cannabis-centred conference on the business potential of the marijuana trade, Minister Bartlett said he recognized “how the cannabis product and its application could fit neatly in a network of health and wellness that could drive a new demographic into Jamaica with a higher spend and which will be able to establish us as a destination with a difference.”
The Tourism Minister said Jamaica should not be a destination with only all-inclusive properties and mass tourism. He said the global market for that kind of tourism stands at around US$494 billion and Jamaica wants a piece of it.
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