Jamaica is looking to cultivate a new driver of its tourism industry: coffee. 

The island’s world-famous Blue Mountain Coffee could help stimulate economic growth and provide a unique experiential tourism product, according to Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett. 

That would include the creation of what Bartlett calls a “coffee innovation town” in either St Andrew or Portland. 

“We want to tap into this very large, elongated, wide, and deep coffee value chain, every link of which has potential for economic growth, development, and enhancement of individuals and communities,” he said. “We could build a coffee innovation town in the hills of St. Andrew and possibly Buff Bay, where we could utilize the various attributes of coffee to bring economic well-being to people and also to bring pleasure, joy, and satisfaction.”

Jamaica’s Blue Mountain Coffee is regularly considered some of the finest coffee on the planet, with a global demand from the US to its most popular market, Japan. 

“In tourism we have found that consumption is why we travel. And the consumption patterns are created by the cultural offerings of the various destinations that we go to. And so for Jamaica to be able to attract a very wide demographic of all types of people from all over the world, we must increase the offerings of experiences that we offer in Jamaica,” said Bartlett.

Bartlett was speaking during the sixth annual Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Festival this week, which featured 35 different Jamaican businesses on display and an immersive coffee experience. 

For more, visit Island Blue Coffee.

— CJ