WITH two decades under her belt in the tourism industry Carolyn McDonald-Riley, director of the Tourism Linkages Network at the Tourism Enhancement Fund, recalls that this was by mere chance.

In 2006 she was the tourism ministry’s nominee for the Civil Servant of the Year Award but four years prior, tourism was the last thing on her mind.

She was working as an auditor at the Taxpayer Audit and Assessment Department when she saw an advertisement for a job opening in the tourism sector.

“It was July 2002. I saw the ad, applied for it, and I was successful. I actually bumped into tourism by accident, though I now really love it. I love what I do and I really feel a part of my ventures,” McDonald-Riley told the Jamaica Observer in an interview.

McDonald-Riley, also an attorney-at-law, said there is no desire to return to law any time soon. She made it categorically clear that the court of her passion has ruled in favour of tourism.

“Not immediately,” she responded, when asked if there were any plans to hang up the tourism cap.

“I spend more time with tourism. I mean, practising law has really sharpened my analytical skills and writing skills but being an attorney is a very noble position and it is always one that one can use,” McDonald-Riley continued.

And 20 years later she has been given ample proof to make the declaration that there are many Jamaicans with a flawed view of tourism.

“I think the biggest misconception about tourism is that it only employs, for us locally, low-level jobs — waiters and waitresses and so forth. That’s so not true. There are a lot of Jamaicans and Caribbean professionals that are involved in the tourism industry and [at] different stages — and these are high- paying jobs once we have the training,” she told the Sunday Observer.

“So, I think we need to do more about selling the professions in the industry, we need to do more talking about the salaries that can be earned in the industry so that we can do away with some of those misconceptions.”

McDonald-Riley, also a trained and certified mediator with the Disputes Resolution Foundation, described the tourism industry as one that accepts everybody, and said that at any stage, one can be very successful at what he or she does.

“You might enter into the transportation sector, you might enter into the supply of agriculture produce, you might supply manufactured items, you might be supplying services (whether it is health and wellness). Whatever it is, the fruits are there for the reaping once you enter the industry in a meaningful way. You supply those products consistently at the right price point and you’ll be getting more business,” McDonald-Riley told the Sunday Observer.

Through the Tourism Linkages Network she said she has also developed personally.

“One of the biggest lessons I have learnt is the ability to network and more importantly, for us to sell to our people the fact that we can earn so much from the linkages. Every single owner of the tourism product needs [the] supply of services and goods — and once your aware of that, there’s so much that we can earn.”

However, McDonald-Riley said everyone won’t earn the “block and the steel.”

“But we can supply the goods, we can supply the services, we can do so much; and it is so important that we have this information so that we can be profitable business people from the linkages,” she told the Sunday Observer.

Two decades in, the tourism guru said she still has hopes for the sector.

“My hope for Jamaica’s tourism industry is that more information is disseminated so that people understand the industry and the value, because tourism by itself is not an industry,” she said.

Instead, she continued, “It’s really a series of moving parts which come together by different persons playing their roles, so I hope we have a safer and perceived safer environment so that we can have our visitors, and locals alike, walking shoulder to shoulder without any fear at all whatsoever.”

She recently contested for lieutenant governor elect for 2021/2022 for Kiwanis Division 23 Eastern St Andrew, and was successful.

“That was wonderful. It was certainly fun competing… I love to compete by the way. I was successful; it’s the results that I expected [as] I didn’t expect to lose,” she said, clarifying that she isn’t about being cocky.

“Find something you love and it’s really not work. I find the time to do the things that I really want to do. Giving back is something that I absolutely love, and as a matter of fact I think, based on how I was grown up, giving and sharing is really a part of my DNA so it doesn’t really feel like juggling — it feels like part of what I am supposed to do,” she added.

McDonald-Riley noted that both tourism and Kiwanis oftentimes intertwine, and said that in some instances the people across both areas are similar.

“With Kiwanis it is so much in terms of planning and working with large groups from a wide, different cross section of society, and I certainly have to do that with work too. When you are looking at the linkages we are looking at different people at different stratums, we are looking at training people at the lower level, how we upskill them, how we provide an opportunity for them while networking with our owners and operators of large companies to also provide opportunities for them.”