Public and private sector tourism stakeholders in Jamaica discussed the issues that affect the country’s tourism sector’s ability to remain competitive in the new global trading environment at a two-day workshop on multilateral and regional trade issues which opened in Kingston on Sunday.The workshop also explored how best to continue the process of dialogue and education that will enable Jamaica’s tourism sector to participate in the formulation of policy on global trade issues, as well as the negotiating positions that are taken at the national and regional levels.

Some 30 persons from the tourism public and private sectors participated in the workshop which was organized by The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) and Jamaica’s Ministry of Industry & Tourism, in collaboration with the Organization of American States (OAS), the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation (CFTC) and the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA).

It is the 5th in a series of workshops to help the tourism stakeholders in CTO member states better understand what’s at stake for the sector in the various regional and global trade agreements and to contribute to the decisions that are being taken at the national, regional and global levels that fundamentally affect the rules of how, where and with whom they do business.

The workshop covers the World Trade Organization/General Agreement on Trade in Services (WTO/GATS); the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) agreements.

Similar workshops have already been held in Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname, with a number of others being planned before the end of the year.

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