Photos by Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer
LEFT: AIC Chairman Michael Lee Chin (left) jokes with Prime Minister Bruce Golding (right) at the reception and dinner for tour operators attending JAPEX expo held at Vale Royal on Thursday, April 23. In background is Sumfest Promotions' Robert Russell.
RIGHT: Russian jazz performers, and siblings to boot, (from left) Yana, Kristina and Olesya Pitashova, are all too happy to their photo taken.
Daviot Kelly, Staff Reporter
No matter how good the product you have is, if nobody sells it, people won't buy.
And for a country like Jamaica, with beauty galore but enough negatives to scare away potential visitors, these 'sellers' are the tour operators and tourism media who accentuate our positives.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding knows the importance of both these groups and welcomed them with a reception and dinner at Vale Royal on Thursday.
Fine, Jamaican cuisine
The event was also a prelude to the 18th Jamaica Product Exchange show (held the following day), in which many of the guests would be participating. But the evening event was all about fine, Jamaican cuisine, entertainment and naturally, warm hospitality. Local young instrumentalists, including violinist Nadje Leslie and saxophonist Dwayne Foster, kept guests entertained with their selections which ranged from Jamaican classics to American ballads.
Chairman of the Jamaica Tourist Board John Lynch lauded the foreign guests for ensuring Jamaica remained at the top of the minds of travellers. Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett beamed about a successful 2007 in which the island received record stopovers and winter-season visitors. All hoped it would be just as great in 2008.
Guests out included Spanish Ambassador Jesús Silva and wife Sara, Transport Minister Mike Henry, Godfrey and Odette Dyer, Josef Forstmayr, Adam Stewart, Merrick and Camille Needham, Michael Lee Chin, Donnovan Lewis, Carrole Guntley, Dr Cleo Taylor, Paul Issa, Daryl Vaz, Don and Ayesha Creary, Dr Wykeham McNeill and wife Sheila, Carole Fullerton and a host of others.
