President of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) Nicola Madden-Greig has called on players in the tourism sector to start viewing the local agriculture and manufacturing sectors as main providers of goods and services in areas with a distinct competitive advantage.

Her comments follow the release of the Tourism Demand Study, earlier this week, which indicated that opportunities created by tourism for the trade of locally-made goods and services could be worth an estimated J$70 billion.

However, the study states that although many hoteliers are being supplied by local businesses, many of them are importing goods that can be sourced locally.

Madden-Greig says the study, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Tourism’s Tourism Linkages Council has answered questions regarding the availability of goods on the local market.

She says a door has now been opened for persons in the industry to take advantage of what is available locally.

Meanwhile, Tourism Minister, Dr. Wykeham McNeil says his industry intends to use the finds of the study to put plans in place to address the constraints so that the Jamaican economy can benefit more.

The minister says it makes sense to “target agriculture and manufacturing to reduce imports and increase the use of locally grown fruits and vegetables, locally produced goods and services. This is big money for Jamaica. We want to earn more and keep more earnings here”.

According to the study, the opportunity for trade could be as high as J$56.7 billion annually for processed foods, J$5.3 billion for fruits and J$1.6 billion for vegetables.

The estimated annual leakage in the manufacturing sector is J$65.4 billion, which is equivalent to 33% of the estimated total annual expenditure of businesses in the sector on manufactured goods.

Leakages in the agricultural sector are also estimated to be within the range of J$1.6 billion – J$5 billion, which is 8.5% – 25.5% of annual expenditure on agricultural products.