Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, who departed Jamaica over the weekend for Dubai, has begun his participation in the much-anticipated 2025 staging of Arabian Travel Market (ATM), one of the world’s largest travel and trade events. While en route to Dubai, Minister Bartlett made a brief stop in Florida, where he was the guest speaker at the 29th Anniversary Fundraising Gala hosted by the Friends of Good Shepherd International (FOGS) at the Double Tree Hotel in Sunrise. The event, attended by a full house of patrons from the Jamaican Diaspora, recognised the charitable efforts of the organisation and its founder, Archbishop Emeritus of Kingston, The Most Rev. Hon. Charles Dufour, in support of the Mustard Seed Communities in Jamaica.

For over three decades, the World Travel Awards (WTA) has stood as the ultimate hallmark of industry excellence, honoring the leaders across all sectors of travel, tourism, and hospitality. Established in 1993, the WTA was created to acknowledge, reward, and celebrate excellence in the travel industry — and today, it is recognized globally as the most prestigious and comprehensive awards program in the sector.

Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways is not seeing any effects from the turmoil caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, its CEO Antonoaldo Neves told Reuters on Monday, while adding it was too early to fully gauge the impact of the levies. Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners this month - and then his pausing of most of them - created widespread market uncertainty and raised fears of a global economic downturn.