Faith-Based Tourism Provides Major Growth Opportunity

RUNAWAY BAY, St Ann, Jamaica; Thursday, May 15, 2025: As Jamaica intensifies its global thrust to boost tourist arrivals and earnings by diversifying its source markets, Minister of Tourism, Hon Edmund Bartlett has underscored that the expanding faith-based tourism market provides major growth opportunity for the island.

Recent estimates indicate that globally, faith-based tourism is valued at some US$254.3 billion and is projected to grow at a rate of 15 percent, up to the year 2030. Quoting those figures, Minister Bartlett said by ramping up efforts to target this niche: “It certainly tells you that we now have a growing market segment that we could tap into to make an even stronger contribution to the Jamaican economy.”

He pitched his remarks to Jamaican and UK Church Leaders of the New Testament Church of God, who are attending a joint summit celebrating the centennial of its establishment in Jamaica, at the Cardiff Hall Hotel and Spa, in St. Ann yesterday (May 14). Minister Bartlett noted that the denomination had branched out from Jamaica to foreign lands, including the United Kingdom, North America and the Caribbean, and suggested that “Church and tourism are symbiotic.”

Underscoring the importance of the industry, Minister Bartlett told the Church Leaders that “at the last count, tourism is 9.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in Jamaica; we employ 175,000 people directly and 350,000 indirectly and induced. We represent 53 percent of the foreign exchange generated in the country and one in five of all the people employed in Jamaica are connected to the tourism industry.”

He posited that strengthening tourism meant strengthening the country’s economy and “enabling the people of Jamaica to have a better standard of living and a good quality of life.”

Giving an historical perspective, Minister Bartlett contended that “the government has, in the last eight years, built the tourism industry phenomenally. We’ve doubled the arrivals in the country from a little under two million to 4.3 million visitors today.” He said earnings have also been doubled, from just under US$2 billion in 2007 and increasing by over US$1.5 billion between 2016 to now.

Minister Bartlett told the gathering that “the power of the Church to drive tourism is also embodied in the security the church offers to people who come into our space,” adding that destination assurance was critical to Jamaica, with a signal to visitors coming into the country, that they will have a safe, secure and seamless experience.

“The custodian of the conscience of the people represent that element of surety that underpins the confidence that people have in the destination to know that you can expect a certain behaviour pattern because it is founded on certain rules from the Good Book,” he indicated.

A delegation of 23 leaders from the New Testament Church of God denomination across the UK, led by Administrative Bishop Claion Grandison, has joined local leaders led by Bishop Roy Notice, for the week-long summit, from May 12-19, 2025, celebrating 100 years of the church’s ministry.