With emerging markets expected to recover from the global economic crisis at a faster pace, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, says greater emphasis is being placed on marketing Jamaica to prospective travelers in those regions.

Addressing the Pacific Area Writers Association (PATWA) international seminar on “Travel and Tourism: Need for a Survival Plan in Turbulent Times” at the World Travel Market in London, Bartlett pointed to research which indicates that emerging economies, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China will ultimately surpass the growth rate of developed economies in the United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France and Italy. Emerging markets are forecast to grow in the region of nine percent this year, compared with five percent for developed economies.

Bartlett told the influential tourism writers’ group that consequently, “we are looking at these emerging markets as comprising over half the world’s population; hence the fast and furious pace at which they are expanding must also create a significant impact on global travel.”

The Tourism Minister emphasized that this rapid growth rate is being spurred by intensity in commercial activities, which will result in an increase in earnings and thereby drive demand for leisure travel.

“We then have to be prepared to capture or tap into these non-traditional, potentially high yield source markets,” he said. “It is imperative that we take stock of the changing face of global travel and tourism and strategize to capitalize on these trends…Being able to change the architecture of our own tourism product and the way we position our destination is what equates to survival.”

Additionally, Minister Bartlett noted that research shows that emerging markets have the highest rates of engagement on the Internet, which is why the Jamaica Tourist Board – the marketing and promotion arm of his ministry – implemented a comprehensive online marketing campaign and is making greater use of social media to deliver the message directly to prospective travelers in these areas.

In sharing some of the strategies employed by Jamaica to achieve positive growth during the global economic recession, he pointed to deliberate efforts to improve airlift capacity to the island in order to increase access, sustained marketing and promotion utilizing the best attributes of the country, such as the likes of sprint star Usain Bolt, improving the tourism infrastructure and the diversification of the product.

For the first six months of this year, stop-over arrivals grew 4.1 percent over the same period last year to 1,010,869. This resulted in a 1.6 percent increase in gross foreign exchange earnings of US$1.048 billion for the country. There was a 3.6 percent increase in stop-arrivals in 2009.

Despite the positive trends Bartlett underscored that there were still many challenges, more recent of which is the sharp increase in the Air Passenger Duty by the UK Government.

He is among a delegation of Caribbean Tourism Ministers and High Commissioners scheduled to meet with members of the Scottish Parliament, in continuation of the lobby against the controversial tax that is applied to the cost of airline tickets originating in the UK.