WESTERN BUREAU: Like a bridge connecting the tourism industry to other vital sectors of the economy, this weekend’s Jamaica Rum Festival (JRF) is being hailed as an important vehicle in the Tourism Linkages Programme. Underscoring the annual event’...
WESTERN BUREAU: As the race for vacation destinations heats up, several Jamaican hoteliers and tour operators have joined the country’s tourism minister, Edmund Bartlett, in looking on with cautious optimism as the island’s tourist arrivals point...
WESTERN BUREAU: Michael Aird, husband of Nadine Aird, who lost millions of dollars in assets in a fire which razed the house she lived in with her family in Content, Hanover, recently, is rejecting claims he abandoned his wife. Nadine Aird’s...
WESTERN BUREAU: Burnt out of her home and a thriving farming business, Nadine Aird was forced to find refuge in a Toyota Crown motor car, where she slept nightly, until that, too, was taken from her. The 45-year-old farmer of Content in Hanover...
WE STERN BUREAU: The Jetblue Airways stewardess who reported that she was being held hostage in Jamaica is expected to depart the island later today, after being quarantined for 14 days owing to a positive COVID-19 test result. Kalina Collier,...
WESTERN BUREAU: The Jamaica Rum Festival (JRF), now in its third year, has been described as an educational undertaking that adds enormous value to the tourism industry. That’s the assessment by Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett, who has...
WESTERN BUREAU: A 2021 Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) survey has shown an alarming figure of 47 per cent of the island’s accommodation inventory that has remained closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The hotels closed their...
WESTERN BUREAU: One month shy of a year since being furloughed, more than 60 employees of the National Insurance Fund-owned (NIF) El Greco Resort in Montego Bay, St James, remain in limbo, struggling to survive without a salary or redundancy...
WESTERN BUREAU: The cumulative effect of the very strong COVID-19 protocols being implemented by source markets Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) will have a deleterious effect on Jamaica’s winter tourist season recovery prospects and may...
WESTERN BUREAU: Jamaica’s rich culture and solid foundation with cannabis has catapulted the island to the Uruguayan shores of South America. Kaya Herb House, founded by Jamaica-based businessman Bali Vaswani, has planted its roots in the first...
WESTERN BUREAU: A new mandatory COVID-19 test requirement introduced by the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) is about to further sink the Caribbean’s dismal arrival numbers. The new protocol, effective January 7, requires that all...
WESTERN BUREAU: In what has been tagged an unduly harsh sentencing, a Jamaican man has been imprisoned for six months in Barbados for breaking quarantine; while influential tourists flouting the COVID-19 protocols, when caught are reportedly...
WESTERN BUREAU: Up to Christmas Eve, Rohan Harriott, Pearl Kerr and her husband ‘Blacks’ had not been outside their London, England, homes in days as they endured melancholy, shock and hopelessness. The Kerrs had spent every Christmas in Jamaica...
WESTERN BUREAU: Lights, camera, action! For the first time in 20 years, the large acacia tree in the centre of Oracabessa, St Mary, has come alive with lights and Jamaican artistry – just in time for Christmas. The tree, the largest on the main...
WESTERN BUREAU: With a steep 75 per cent drop in tourist arrivals for the last three quarters of 2020, the Caribbean is expected to contract by 20-30 per cent this year, says Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett. He has cautioned that it...
WESTERN BUREAU: Christopher Allen lifted his hand to hit his wife Antoinette Nelson-Allen, but felt like he had hit a cast iron. The impact broke his wrist. “That was the last time I lifted my hand to hit her. Following that incident, we started...
WESTERN BUREAU: A Hague, Trelawny-bred mathematics major, who minored in economics at The University of the West Indies, Mona, has staked the claim of being the first in Jamaica to introduce an influencer marketing agency. At age 30, Carisse...
WESTERN BUREAU: With the aim to make women who are victims feel beautiful, empowered and relevant as they tell their stories on their feet, celebrity shoe stylist Erica M (Erica Mitchell) is giving three breast cancer survivors custom-made shoes...
WESTERN BUREAU: The divide-and-rule strategy outgoing US President Donald Trump was accused of using to win support for some policies from some Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, is an issue diaspora representatives say they hope the incoming...
WESTERN BUREAU: While there will be considerable euphoria and pride in a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris win in the US presidential race, Jamaica-born New York-based political scientist, Diana Cassells, is cautioning Jamaica and the Caribbean about their...
WESTERN BUREAU: Winston Dear picked up a paintbrush once during a ‘Sip and Paint’ event late last year, and it meant nothing for him but an evening of socialising. But when COVID-19 forced him into lockdown, the 80-year-old developer, renowned...
Ohio, United States: Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has poured cold water on suggestions of mass violence should the outcome of the United States presidential and congressional elections be unfavourable for supporters of the two main...
WESTERN BUREAU: A year ago, Allan Vanriel, a diabetic, was diagnosed with hypertension, which affected his heart. Soon after, a blood test revealed he also had kidney disease, forcing him to become completely dependent on dialysis. The freelance...
WESTERN BUREAU: Not only has Jamaica and the music industry lost a national treasure with Friday’s passing of reggae icon Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert, but his death has left a mammoth vacuum in the island’s cultural landscape. “We have lost an icon,...
WESTERN BUREAU: Shasha-Marie Williams could have been a pregnant teen, because that was the norm in Flankers, St James, where she grew up; while Shellian Blagrove was expected to scorn her problem-plagued community of Mt Salem. Their friends –...
