‘You can have two winners in this game’

WESTERN BUREAU:

As businesses in western Jamaica continue restoring their operations following Hurricane Melissa, Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI) President Jason Russell says business operators must work together to boost commercial gains and provide employment for young people who were disenfranchised by the storm.

Russell made the call during an interview with The Gleaner on Thursday, while outlining his expectations for western Jamaica’s business prospects going into 2026.

“We know that the government was gearing up young people for the hospitality sector through HEART and the DJ Academy programme [an initiative of the Tourism Linkages Network, formed in 2013], and it was really setting the stage to have young people fully and gainfully employed in the hospitality industry. Now that the storm has damaged most of the major hotels, there is going to be a lull in employment, and a lot of layoffs are expected and have already happened,” said Russell.

“A rhetoric I am always pushing is for us to band together, for you to work with your neighbour, and even though they are in the same business, do not treat them like a competitor, because it’s not ‘if I win, you lose, or if you win, I lose’. You can have two winners in this game, and it’s for us to come together and find ways of working with each other, and that will at least get some people hired and get things going,” Russell added.

Last November, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett described Jamaica’s tourism sector as rebounding following Hurricane Melissa’s landfall on October 28. The devastating Category-5 hurricane left tremendous damage across several communities in western Jamaica and forced the temporary closure of several hotels and displacement of hundreds of hospitality workers.

Among the hospitality properties impacted by the storm was Bahia Principe Hotels and Resorts, whose Grand Jamaica property will remain closed until December 1, 2026 due to extensive damage. Other affected hotels along Jamaica’s north-western corridor include RIU, Royalton, Hyatt, and Decameron.

CREATIVE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Russell noted that, amid efforts to get back up and running, business operators will have to become creative in a post-Melissa environment in order to draw in clients, and must not look to past successes in gauging their present chances.

“We have to look for innovative ways to continue, and there is no easy fix, there is no silver bullet, as businesses will have to tighten their belts while pushing marketing and offering specials. You can’t use the past or look at what you made last year, and you can’t look at how robust your business was before Melissa, but you have to look at what you’re left with and see how you can network, pivot, and rethink,” said Russell.

The MBCCI president also praised Jamaica’s declining crime rate, with the country recording 673 murders last year compared to 1,141 murders in 2024. The murder figure for 2025 is said to be the lowest on record for Jamaica since 1994, when 690 people were killed.

“We are feeling it in western Jamaica, because Montego Bay was one of the most murderous cities in the world at one point, and now you walk downtown on the Hip Strip [along Jimmy Cliff Boulevard] and Harmony Beach Park, and you’re seeing record numbers of people out there. It comes from people feeling safe, and you can’t downplay what safety means to somebody, because if you don’t feel safe, you’re not going to go out, and it’s a survival mechanism,” said Russell.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com