COME March next year, Miss Nigeria Nyekachi Douglas and Miss India Suman Rao will be guests of the Government of Jamaica for a week-long, all-expenses-paid vacation.

Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett revealed that the females — contestants in the recent Miss World pageant in London, won by Jamaica’s Toni-Ann Singh — will also participate in activities related to the observance of International Women’s Day, which will be celebrated on Sunday, March 8.

The minister said the full slate of activities will be released once they have been finalised.

“On Saturday I had discussion with Julia Morley, head of the Miss World Organisation, and we signed off on the visit of these two ladies and synchronised their visit so we could have Toni-Ann here as well. Initially, the hope was to have them here in February for Reggae Month, but that was not feasible for everyone. So we decided to work with March, and International Women’s Day presents a great opportunity for us to celebrate with these three beauties,” Bartlett told the Jamaica Observer.

Both Miss India and Miss Nigeria finished in the top five. The latter set social media on fire with her reaction to the announcement of Singh as winner of the 69th edition of the pageant.

“There was a magnanimity of spirit which was displayed by Miss Nigeria which was so real and goes against conventional wisdom. Here was a young woman who was declaring for the whole world to see that the judges got it right and the best person had won, and we liked that. So we decided to invite her along with India, as they represent two of the world’s emerging markets and a convergence of certain initiatives here at the ministry. We are very excited to welcome them to the island and show them our warm Jamaican hospitality,” said the minister.

Bartlett further revealed that he also initiated talks with Morley about other ways in which Miss World can work alongside his ministry in promoting the country’s tourism product. He said that Jamaica will also look into the possibility of hosting the pageant at some time in the future.

“I will be meeting with the Miss World Organisation in London in January for further discussion on how Toni-Ann can work with us on strengthening the tourism product and the promotion of Jamaica. As for hosting the Miss World pageant, that will have to be sometime in the future. Hosting next year is really out of the question; I figure that is already spoken for or a number of countries have already advanced their bids. What we would be looking at is 2022 or 2023, but at the luncheon we also examined other options in which we could collaborate in this regard,” Bartlett said.