Montego Bay, St James - As the country grapples with an escalating murder rate and rampant criminality, minister of tourism, Edmund Bartlett, on the weekend admitted that Jamaica's label as an 'unsafe destination' had made the tourism product a hard sell.

"I have to sell this country every day and I tell you, it's a hard sell," Bartlett said Saturday at his East Central St James annual Teachers Awards here.

Notwithstanding, he said the country continued to break records with its tourist arrivals, owing to the allure of the destination, its culture and its people.

"There is something about us," said Bartlett. "Even though we are seen to be an unsafe destination we continue to break records every year."

Bartlett, who used his address to defend the Government's decision to introduce casino gambling against staunch opposition from the church, said poverty and unemployment were among the factors fuelling Jamaica's crime problem.
He insisted that casino gambling, instead of furthering this problem, would help to solve it by providing direct and indirect employment

"Casino gaming will not cause us to respect life any more or any less," implored the minister. "We have to purge ourselves of these deeper feelings that are telling us don't tell, don't report (criminal activities)," he encouraged the packed ballroom at the Rose Hall Resort and Country Club.

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