Richard Byles, the co-chairman of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC), is encouraging more Jamaican businesses to get involved in the tourism industry, suggesting that it has the potential to spur economic growth.
His suggestion was made against the background of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica reporting just 0.4 per cent growth in the first quarter of this year and the Planning Institute of Jamaica now estimating a 0.8 per cent growth in the second quarter, which some see as not being good enough.
“Every Jamaican says one per cent growth is really small and we need to have, like, three and four per cent,” Byles said Thursday at the latest EPOC press briefing.
“Well, there are sectors of the economy that are having the three and four per cent, and tourism is one of them.”
In his private-sector persona, Byles is president and chief executive officer of Sagicor Group Jamaica, a company that up to June 2014 had reportedly invested some US$60 million on hotel rooms and other aspects of the tourism business.
“This is big business for Jamaica and I think business people need, to look at the economy and say, ‘Well, if one sector that I used to invest in before is not growing but another sector that I never used to invest in before is growing – and has an opportunity to grow even further – maybe I should think of going into it’,” said the EPOC co-chair.
“I think that more Jamaican business people need to get into the business of tourism. It is a sector that has great potential for Jamaica. We are really just scratching the surface of the potential of tourism,” he said.
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