Jamaica offers Saudi Arabia workforce blueprint for 1 million tourism careers
Originally published by South Florida Caribbean News Read the original
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Jamaica is offering Saudi Arabia a workforce-development model to help turn the kingdom’s Vision 2030 tourism expansion into 1 million lasting careers, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said.
Speaking Thursday at World Travel Market Saudi Arabia on the panel “Delivering Saudi Vision Beyond 2030,” Bartlett said the country’s major tourism investments will succeed only if they are matched by investment in the people delivering the visitor experience.
“The strongest destinations are not built on concrete alone. They are built on careers. On people. On dignity,” he said, calling the 1 million careers goal “a covenant with a generation.”
Bartlett pointed to Jamaica’s workforce-development experience through the HEART/NSTA Trust, the Jamaica Centre for Tourism Innovation and the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre. He positioned Jamaica as a partner that could help Saudi Arabia build a skilled, sustainable tourism workforce.
He urged Saudi Arabia to build clear pathways from entry-level jobs to management and entrepreneurship, backed by training, scholarships and opportunities for ownership.
“If you want 1 million careers to last beyond 2030, young Saudis must see a 40-year future in this sector — with training, with promotion, with ownership,” Bartlett said. “That is how you build a national workforce. Not just fill positions.”
Bartlett also cited Jamaica’s Tourism Workers’ Pension Scheme — described as the first of its kind globally — and its crisis support and retraining after COVID-19 and other disruptions. “A destination is only as resilient as its people,” he said. “Worker protection is not a cost. It is the insurance policy for your 1 million careers.”
Bartlett proposed formal Jamaica-Saudi cooperation, including partnerships between the resilience center and Saudi training academies and an exchange program focused on workforce development and tourism resilience.
“Our model is simple, and it scales: develop the workforce, professionalize the skills, create the career ladder, protect the worker,” he said. Bartlett predicted the workforce behind Saudi Arabia’s tourism projects could ultimately become a more important legacy than the projects themselves.
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