Jamaica to roll out emergency travel programme

Jamaica will shortly roll out a travel protection and emergency service programme which allows travelers to the island to be covered in the event of emergency. Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said this programme will position Jamaica as one of the most covid19-resilient countries in the world when it is launched, hopefully in December.

Speaking at the Jamaica Product Exchange (JAPEX) Live 2020, Jamaica’s ground-breaking virtual trade show on Monday, Bartlett said the programme was developed to assure visitors that their safety and wellbeing was being taken care of when they travel.

“Jamaica Cares is a ground-breaking travel protection and emergency service programme that provides visitors with cost of Medicare, evacuations, field rescue, case management and patient advocacy in all circumstances up to and including natural disasters. As it relates to covid19, the protection plan also covers testing for symptomatic travellers, quarantine isolation in a medical facility or in sanctioned quarantine facilities and evacuation if necessary. Signing on to the service would be mandatory when travelling.”

Bartlett said Jamaica Cares would add another layer to the country’s covid19 health and safety protocols, which were endorsed by the World Travel and Tourism Council.

“Our north and south coast resilient corridors have allowed us to balance the reopening of the country to tourism while also maintaining safe and secure environments for tourism workers, residents, and visitors. To date there are no known cases of infection along our resilient corridors.

Visitors to the island are now able to enjoy more of our unique offerings as many of our covid19 compliant attractions located along our resilient corridors are now authorised for visits by tourists. Also our visitors can now stay within multiple facilities within the corridors, allowing them the opportunity to experience more than one resort region on a single trip.”

Director of Tourism Donovan White said the resilience corridors were two specific areas in Jamaica which contained 80 per cent of the tourism assets of the country. He said they run from Negril in the northwest to Portland in the east, and from Negril to the Milk River in Clarendon, both along the coast.

White said the travel authorisation process was another procedure which allowed Jamaica to screen visitors to the island. Travellers can apply for this document through the Visit Jamaica website, and if approved, could present the document upon check-in to a flight to the island. He said some changes had been made to the authorisation to make it easier.

“Visitors no longer have to upload a negative covid19 test while applying for the travel authorisation, unless they are from the high-risk countries of the US, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Brazil, and Panama. They will however have to present it at check-in. We are now accepting both PCR and antigen tests no older than ten days before arrival in Jamaica, including your travelling days.

The tests must be approved by the World Health Organization, the Pan-American Health Organization or the US Food and Drug Administration.”

Bartlett said the decision to lockdown the UK recently had meant the cancellation of a number of flights which would not resume until mid-December. He said this had a devastating impact on the projected tourism numbers.

He said he did not think the change of presidency in the US would have an effect on the number of tourists coming to the island, as Americans liked to travel. He said what might change would be how the virus is managed.

He said if an effective virus could reduce the spread and manage the virus, technology could have travel return to pre-covid19 levels.