144

An economic, tourism, strategic, geopolitical and institutional analysis by CPGNNews: CaribPulse Global News Network

A multilingual international editorial platform born in the Caribbean.

Analysis of the major contemporary economic, tourism, social and geopolitical transformations, their consequences for states, markets, businesses and societies, with a particular perspective from the Caribbean.

By the CPGNNews Editorial Board | Global Perspective, a Caribbean Reading
August 26, 2026

Think the Caribbean. Understand the World.

OPENING PERSPECTIVE

Jamaica occupies a paradoxical place in the international imagination. It is immediately recognizable without always being truly understood. Its name evokes a musical culture that has become global, sporting achievements that have profoundly shaped contemporary history, tourist landscapes among the Caribbean’s best known, and a national identity whose influence extends far beyond the island’s demographic and territorial dimensions. Yet behind this exceptional visibility lies a state whose economic, institutional, social, climatic and geopolitical transformations deserve far greater attention than they often receive in international interpretations of the Caribbean.

It is precisely this paradox that justifies this report. Jamaica can no longer be studied solely as a tourist destination, as an island economy dependent on external markets, or as an English speaking country integrated into the Caribbean space. It must now be considered an actor positioned at the intersection of several major transformations: the restructuring of global tourism, the transformation of value chains, the acceleration of climate risks, the evolution of relations between the United States and the Caribbean, the growing influence of Latin America, the renewal of diaspora strategies, the development of cultural and digital industries, and the search by small states for new forms of economic sovereignty.

Jamaica’s significance also lies in its ability to reveal transformations that extend beyond its own territory. The difficulties it faces are those of many island states: dependence on a limited number of sectors, vulnerability to natural disasters, exposure to international fluctuations, high infrastructure costs, the need to retain talent, and the difficulty of creating economies of scale. But its strengths are equally representative of a new generation of possibilities: global cultural capital, a significant diaspora, international connectivity, tourism potential, geographic position, human resources and diplomatic capacity.

This report therefore begins from a simple conviction: the size of a state does not necessarily determine its strategic importance. In a world characterized by networks, data, value chains, capital mobility, creative industries, digital infrastructure and the global movement of people, a small state can exercise considerable influence if it knows how to connect its different assets effectively.

Jamaica is, in this respect, a particularly compelling laboratory. Its history demonstrates how a cultural identity can become a global brand. Its economy illustrates the limits of excessive dependence on tourism and services. Its institutional experience demonstrates the importance of macroeconomic stability. Its diaspora shows that national power can extend far beyond the territory. Its climate vulnerabilities demonstrate, finally, that resilience must now be incorporated into any serious conception of sovereignty.

For CPGNNews, this study responds to a particular editorial responsibility. A platform born in the Caribbean cannot limit itself to commenting on events in the region. It must contribute to producing a deeper understanding of its transformations. Think the Caribbean. Understand the World. This orientation requires moving beyond national borders and event driven interpretations in order to examine the structural mechanisms that will determine the region’s place in the emerging international order.

Devoting a reference report to Jamaica therefore means raising a question that extends beyond Jamaica itself: how can a relatively small Caribbean state transform its cultural influence, human capital, tourism sector, diaspora and geographic position into lasting economic and strategic power? This question lies at the heart of the present work.

SETTING THE CONTEXT

Jamaica is entering a decisive decade. Between 2026 and 2035, the country will have to consolidate its macroeconomic gains, rebuild and strengthen its infrastructure, adapt its economy to the consequences of climate change, diversify its tourism markets, improve productivity, develop its creative industries, mobilize its diaspora more effectively and preserve its institutional capacity in an international environment that has become increasingly unstable. These challenges should not, however, be considered separately. They constitute different dimensions of the same question: what form of power can Jamaica build over the next decade?

This question takes on particular importance because the regional environment itself is undergoing transformation. The Caribbean is experiencing an economic and strategic reconfiguration that extends far beyond the traditional opposition between tourism and external dependence. The Dominican Republic is strengthening its tourism and industrial power. Guyana is undergoing a historic transformation linked to its energy resources. Trinidad and Tobago retains exceptional energy and industrial depth. Barbados is developing an economic and climate diplomacy whose influence exceeds its material weight. The Bahamas is strengthening its positioning in high value tourism segments. Cuba remains an actor of considerable territorial, human and historical depth. Haiti is experiencing a crisis that affects the broader regional balance. At the same time, the small states of the Caribbean are seeking to deepen their integration, strengthen internal mobility and increase their bargaining power within international institutions.

Jamaica can therefore no longer define its future solely through its bilateral relations with the United States or through the annual performance of its tourism sector. It must be analyzed within a regional environment in which several development models and several forms of power confront, complement and, at times, compete with one another.

This reality also explains why tourism occupies such an important place in this report. Tourism represents far more than a foreign exchange generating activity. In an island economy, it can become a platform connecting agriculture, the food industry, transportation, construction, financial services, digital technologies, culture, heritage, commerce and small businesses. But this function is not automatic. It depends on the country’s ability to build sufficiently deep domestic value chains so that tourism expenditure generates stronger multiplier effects within the national economy.

The same reasoning applies to culture. Jamaica possesses one of the most remarkable examples of cultural soft power produced by a small state. Yet global recognition of a culture does not necessarily mean that the majority of the economic value created by that culture remains in its country of origin. The next phase of development must therefore address questions of intellectual property, production, distribution, financing, training and the capacity of Jamaican businesses to participate in global markets.

The diaspora constitutes another central dimension of this equation. In a globalized economy, a national community dispersed across several of the world’s most powerful economies can represent an international infrastructure of skills, capital, networks and knowledge. The question is no longer simply how much the diaspora transfers to Jamaica. It is also necessary to examine how it can contribute to productive investment, research, innovation, training, entrepreneurship, economic diplomacy and access to new markets.

A further variable has now been added to this economic equation and can no longer be regarded as secondary: climate. Natural disasters demonstrate that climate vulnerability can rapidly become a fiscal, productive, tourism and social vulnerability. Infrastructure resilience, ecosystem protection, energy security, diversification of transportation networks and reconstruction capacity must therefore be integrated into the national economic strategy. The climate question thus becomes a question of competitiveness and sovereignty.

This report consequently adopts an approach deliberately broader than that of a conventional economic study. It seeks to understand Jamaica as a system of capabilities. An economy is not merely a collection of statistics. It rests on institutions, infrastructure, businesses, skills, networks, natural resources, international relations and a collective capacity to transform opportunities into results. It is the articulation of these elements that determines the true power of a state.

This approach also makes it possible to move beyond a strictly national reading. Jamaica must be observed simultaneously from Kingston, from CARICOM, from Washington, from Ottawa, from London, from Latin American capitals, from international tourism markets and from diaspora communities. Its national trajectory is inseparable from its international environment.

This is where the editorial rationale for this CPGNNews report lies. CPGNNews does not regard the Caribbean as a periphery of international affairs. It is a strategic space where the major transformations of the twenty first century converge: climate change, migration, global tourism, maritime security, trade, energy, digitalization, diplomacy, culture, international finance and the reconfiguration of power relations. A serious analysis of the Caribbean must therefore begin from the region itself and not solely from the perspective that major powers impose upon it.

Jamaica provides a particularly relevant vantage point for this approach. It is small enough to make visible the structural constraints specific to island states, yet sufficiently connected to reveal the mechanisms of globalization. It is profoundly Caribbean while possessing global cultural influence. It belongs to the English speaking world while developing increasingly significant relations with Latin America. It is heavily dependent on tourism while possessing cultural and diasporic potential that could support economic diversification. It is vulnerable to climate shocks while possessing institutional experience that can support the construction of resilience mechanisms.

The report therefore advances a central hypothesis: the next stage of Jamaican development will depend less on creating new assets than on the capacity to connect more effectively those the country already possesses.

Connect tourism and agriculture. Culture and intellectual property. Diaspora and investment. Universities and innovation. Climate resilience and infrastructure. CARICOM and international markets. Latin America and the English speaking Caribbean. Culture and diplomacy. Digitalization and services. Local businesses and global value chains. This logic of connection constitutes the guiding thread of the entire study.

The 2035 horizon finally makes it possible to pose an essential prospective question. Can Jamaica transform its exceptional symbolic influence into economic, institutional and strategic power? Can it reduce tourism value leakage? Can it create deeper local value chains? Can it turn its cultural industries into a genuine export economy? Can it mobilize its diaspora as an international extension of its economy? Can it become a major actor in Caribbean climate resilience? Can it use its geographic position and diplomacy to become a platform connecting several regions of the world?

This report does not claim to provide a definitive answer to each of these questions. Rather, it seeks to construct an analytical framework for understanding the choices Jamaica will face and the capabilities it will need to develop in order to transform its historical advantages into sustainable power. It is from this perspective that the analysis begins.

A CULTURAL POWER SEEKING ECONOMIC DEPTH

Jamaica occupies a position in the global imagination that its territorial size, population and economic weight alone cannot explain. Few states of comparable dimensions have succeeded in inscribing their name so permanently in global culture. This influence is not the product of a recently developed communications strategy; it is the outcome of a long history shaped by resistance, cultural intermixing, migration, artistic creation, social transformation and a remarkable capacity to convert local experiences into universal forms of expression. Reggae, dancehall, Jamaican athletics, literature, gastronomy, spiritual traditions, aesthetics, landscapes, the memory of emancipation and the international figure of Bob Marley have all contributed to constructing a representation of Jamaica that extends far beyond the island’s borders. Through these different expressions, the country has developed what might be described as national symbolic capital: a collection of images, narratives, cultural references and values perceived abroad as intrinsically associated with Jamaican identity. This capacity to be immediately identifiable constitutes a form of international power that depends neither on the size of the armed forces, nor on the volume of GDP, nor on the financial capacity of the state. It belongs to the category of influence powers, whose effects are often less visible in traditional statistics than in behaviors, preferences, tourism flows, cultural consumption and collective representations.

This situation nevertheless places Jamaica before a fundamental contradiction. A nation can exercise considerable cultural influence without succeeding in capturing an equivalent proportion of the economic value generated by that influence. International recognition of a national identity does not automatically mean that the creators, businesses, workers and institutions of the country carrying that identity control the value chains through which it can be monetized. A Jamaican song may be listened to millions of kilometers from Kingston without the value generated by its distribution returning primarily to the Jamaican economy. A visitor may choose Jamaica because the country is associated with a unique cultural experience without the entirety of that tourist expenditure proportionally reaching local businesses. An international brand may use aesthetic, musical or symbolic codes associated with the island while retaining elsewhere the intellectual property, distribution capabilities and largest share of commercial margins. The distinction between influence and value capture therefore becomes essential to understanding the next stage of Jamaican development. The question is no longer whether Jamaica possesses a globally recognized culture; that fact is already established. The strategic question now consists in determining how this recognition can be transformed into productive capabilities, skilled employment, national enterprises, intellectual property, investment and sustainable income for Jamaican society.

This issue extends far beyond the cultural sector alone because the same mechanism appears in tourism. Jamaica sells the world much more than a tropical climate and coastal landscapes. It sells an experience built around an identity. The visitor does not consume merely a hotel room, transportation or a beach; the visitor consumes a representation of Jamaica, a history, an atmosphere, a cuisine, music, a particular relationship with social life and a promise of authenticity. Tourism thus constitutes one of the principal mechanisms through which Jamaican cultural power is converted into economic activity. But this conversion does not necessarily mean national capture of value. The more a tourism economy depends on international booking chains, foreign capital, external suppliers, global brands, imported equipment and services controlled from abroad, the greater the share of the value generated by the destination that may be transferred outside the territory. This is not a dysfunction specific to Jamaica, but a structural phenomenon affecting open tourism economies. The Jamaican question therefore becomes one of the depth of the connections between tourism and the rest of the national economy.

This depth is probably one of the principal criteria distinguishing a merely successful tourism economy from a genuinely transformative tourism economy. In the first model, an increase in visitor numbers primarily generates growth in accommodation capacity, transportation and services directly associated with the stay. In the second, every visitor becomes the starting point of a much broader chain of national production. Their consumption can stimulate agriculture, food processing, fisheries, construction, logistics, financial services, digital technologies, creative industries, transportation, vocational training, audiovisual production and a multitude of small and medium sized enterprises. The difference between these two models is therefore not quantitative but structural. It determines the proportion of the wealth created by tourism that remains within the Jamaican economy and the capacity of that wealth to generate cumulative effects on productivity, income, skills and investment.

This distinction takes on particular importance in an island economy. The small size of the domestic market naturally limits certain opportunities for economies of scale and makes reliance on international markets, external capital and imports necessary. Jamaica therefore cannot reasonably pursue a form of economic self sufficiency that would be incompatible with its geography and with the contemporary structure of the global economy. Its challenge is not to reduce its openness but to improve the conditions under which that openness operates. An open economy can be deeply integrated into international markets while retaining substantial national productive and decision making capacity. The real question of economic sovereignty is therefore not whether foreign capital, major international companies or foreign visitors are present in the Jamaican economy. It is the extent to which the national economy possesses the skills, businesses, institutions and infrastructure necessary to negotiate with these actors, participate in value chains and retain a significant share of the wealth produced.

It is from this perspective that the current Jamaican debate surrounding Tourism 3.0 must be understood. The challenge is no longer simply to increase visitor numbers to a destination already recognized worldwide. It is to evolve tourism toward an economic architecture in which productivity, resilience, community participation, skills development, the integration of local suppliers and national ownership occupy a more important place. Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism presents Tourism 3.0 precisely as a new phase intended to broaden the benefits of the sector beyond traditional visitor indicators and strengthen the links between tourism, workers, businesses and the national economy. This orientation is strategic because it implicitly recognizes that the central question is no longer merely the growth of the sector, but its capacity to drive the rest of the economy. Within this logic, tourism can cease to be regarded as a relatively isolated industry and become an economic infrastructure connecting several national sectors around international demand.

Cultural power then constitutes the first level of this architecture. It gives Jamaica an advantage that many destinations must attempt to construct artificially through substantial international promotion budgets. Jamaica already possesses spontaneous global recognition. Its name immediately evokes a set of cultural and historical references whose commercial strength is considerable. But this cultural power should not be reduced to a simple tourism brand image. It can support a much broader economy based on creative industries, audiovisual production, music, fashion, design, gastronomy, publishing, digital activities and services linked to intellectual property. The real potential lies in this extension of culture into exportable sectors. A song produced in Jamaica and consumed abroad is a cultural export. A film shot in Jamaica, a digital production created by a Jamaican company, a creative service sold to a foreign company or a cultural brand developed by Jamaican entrepreneurs likewise constitute forms of export. This approach would gradually move beyond a conception in which culture is merely an instrument for attracting visitors and instead recognize it as an economic sector capable of directly generating international revenue.

This evolution nevertheless requires a transformation of national capabilities. An international cultural reputation is not sufficient to create a competitive creative industry. It requires studios, digital infrastructure, schools, financing mechanisms, intellectual property specialists, distribution platforms, international marketing professionals, producers, lawyers, sound engineers, developers, entrepreneurs and institutions capable of supporting creators over the long term. Without this architecture, a significant share of the value can be captured by international intermediaries that possess the technologies, platforms, distribution networks and financial capabilities required to transform a local creation into a global product. The Jamaican question thus joins a much broader issue affecting many countries of the Global South: how can they move from producing content and resources sought by the global market to controlling a larger share of the infrastructure through which those assets are commercialized and valued?

Artificial intelligence and digital transformation make this question even more urgent. Contemporary technologies reduce certain barriers to the production and distribution of content, but they can also reinforce the concentration of value in the hands of companies that control platforms, data, infrastructure and technological models. For a nation whose cultural power constitutes a strategic asset, mastery of the digital dimension can therefore no longer be regarded as a secondary issue. Jamaica possesses a historic cultural advantage; it must now determine whether it will remain primarily a producer of content used by global platforms or whether it will also be able to develop the skills and businesses required to participate in the most profitable technological and commercial segments of this new economy. The answer will partly determine whether its cultural influence remains essentially symbolic or can become a lasting component of its economic power.

This reflection leads to a broader conception of sovereignty. In the context of the twenty first century, a small state cannot claim to control every dimension of its economic environment. It can, however, seek to expand its capacity for choice. This capacity depends on the diversification of its partners, the strength of its institutions, the quality of its infrastructure, its human capital, the depth of its national enterprises and its ability to transform its specific advantages into high value added activities. Jamaica already possesses several of these advantages. Its cultural identity is globally recognized; its tourism sector has considerable experience; its diaspora possesses significant networks in North America and Europe; its geographic position gives it access to several major economic spaces; and its institutional experience in macroeconomic management and resilience constitutes another asset. The challenge is less to invent new advantages than to connect those that already exist within a coherent strategy.

This coherence could precisely constitute the next stage of Jamaican development. Culture can nourish tourism, but tourism can also finance creative industries. Agriculture can supply hotels, while hotels can offer national producers a stable and internationalized market. Universities can train the professionals that tourism and digital companies will need. Infrastructure can be designed not only to accommodate visitors but also to improve the overall productivity of the economy. The diaspora can provide capital, skills and networks enabling Jamaican businesses to access new markets. Regional cooperation can create economies of scale that the domestic market does not always make possible. Within such an architecture, tourism would no longer be an end in itself. It would become one of the engines of a more integrated economic system.

It is precisely this capacity for connection that will determine whether Jamaican cultural power can acquire genuine economic depth. Jamaica no longer needs to convince the world of its uniqueness. It must now transform that uniqueness into national capabilities. Its principal asset is not merely the number of people who know its name, but the economic and strategic value it can derive from that recognition. The transition from cultural power to more comprehensive economic power therefore does not mean the commodification of national identity. It means building institutions capable of protecting, financing, developing and internationalizing the activities produced by that identity. This transformation contains one of the keys to Jamaica in 2026 and, more broadly, one of the major challenges facing small Caribbean powers confronted with globalization, climate change and the growing concentration of technological capabilities.

JAMAICAN TOURISM: A SUCCESS THAT CARRIES ITS OWN VULNERABILITY

Jamaican tourism represents one of the most visible economic successes in the island’s contemporary history, but its importance cannot be properly understood if it is reduced to a succession of statistics concerning international arrivals, available rooms or annual foreign exchange earnings. The sector represents far more than a service activity. It constitutes an interface between Jamaica and the global economy, a mechanism for capturing foreign exchange, a source of direct and indirect employment, a major determinant of demand directed toward agriculture, transportation, commerce, construction and the creative industries, as well as an essential instrument of international projection. Jamaican tourism power rests largely on the country’s ability to combine exceptional natural resources, an immediately recognizable cultural identity, a tradition of hospitality, relatively developed air and port infrastructure, and extensive experience integrating into North American, European and Caribbean tourism markets. This combination has enabled Jamaica to distinguish itself in an extremely competitive regional environment in which destinations compete not only for visitors but also for investment, air connections, hotel capacity, international events and tourist expenditure. The sector’s performance must therefore be regarded as a genuine national asset. Yet precisely because this asset has become so central, its degree of concentration and its exposure to external factors must be examined with the same rigor as its successes.

One of the fundamental characteristics of the Jamaican model lies in its simultaneous exposure to several foreign economies. A significant share of tourism demand originates in developed markets whose economic cycles, income levels, transportation costs and geopolitical conditions remain beyond Kingston’s control. When households in the principal source markets have high disposable incomes, air connections are numerous and affordable, and international confidence remains strong, Jamaica benefits directly from this dynamic. When a recession, a health crisis, a significant increase in fuel prices, a transportation disruption or a deterioration in the international climate occurs, the consequences can rapidly appear in bookings, arrivals and expenditure. This dependence does not mean that the Jamaican tourism model is inherently fragile. Rather, it means that its resilience depends to a considerable extent on its ability to diversify markets, products, territories and value chains. The more the sector relies on a single category of clientele, a single form of stay or a few highly concentrated geographical areas, the more exposed the national economy remains to specific shocks.

This vulnerability becomes even more evident when the climate factor is introduced into the analysis. Jamaica is simultaneously a tourism destination, an island economy and a territory highly exposed to extreme weather events. This triple reality transforms climate into a central economic variable. A major storm does not merely destroy buildings or physical infrastructure. It can interrupt air connections, disrupt electricity networks, damage roads, reduce access to water, affect the agriculture that supplies hotels and restaurants, interrupt supply chains and temporarily damage the international image of the destination. The impact therefore extends far beyond the areas directly affected. This was made particularly visible by Hurricane Melissa from late October 2025 onward. The shock was not merely an environmental or humanitarian disaster; it revealed the interconnected dependence among several sectors of the Jamaican economy. Tourism, agriculture, energy infrastructure, water systems and transportation were affected within the same sequence, demonstrating that the resilience of a tourism destination cannot be separated from the resilience of the national economy.

The estimates of the International Monetary Fund give this reality a particularly important macroeconomic dimension. In its analysis of Jamaica following Melissa, the IMF estimated that the country was facing a major shock affecting production, infrastructure and the balance of payments simultaneously, with external financing needs exceeding $1.4 billion. The institution projected a 4.3% contraction in economic activity during fiscal year 2025/26 and estimated that output would not return to its pre hurricane level until 2028. These projections demonstrate why tourism can no longer be treated as a sector independent from the broader economic policy framework. When tourism slows sharply in an economy where it occupies such an important position, the effects are transmitted to foreign exchange earnings, businesses, workers, suppliers and public finances. Tourism resilience therefore becomes a component of macroeconomic resilience. This relationship is particularly important for an island economy that does not possess the industrial or demographic depth of large continental states and whose capacity to absorb several shocks simultaneously is necessarily more limited.

The Jamaican response to Melissa nevertheless revealed an institutional capacity that deserves particular attention. The decision to proceed with a gradual reopening of the tourism sector from December 15, 2025, only a few weeks after the disaster, demonstrated the importance of close coordination among public authorities, private operators, transportation infrastructure, workers and international markets. Tourism authorities also used their international communications capacity to maintain the confidence of visitors and investors. Data communicated by the Ministry of Tourism indicate that Jamaica ended 2025 with approximately 3.7 million visitors, including 2.6 million stopover visitors and 1.1 million cruise passengers, generating estimated tourism revenues of approximately $4.09 billion. These results must naturally be interpreted in light of the fact that the year was profoundly disrupted by Melissa. Nevertheless, they demonstrate that a tourism economy heavily exposed to a major disaster can retain significant recovery capacity when institutions, essential infrastructure and private actors possess sufficient crisis management experience.

This recovery capacity, however, constitutes a form of resilience that should not be confused with vulnerability reduction. An economy may be capable of rapidly returning to its previous level while remaining exposed to a recurrence of the same shock. Genuine resilience requires transforming the conditions that produce vulnerability. This is where reconstruction following Melissa can become a strategic moment for Jamaica. Rebuilding hotels, roads, networks and tourism infrastructure constitutes an immediate necessity, but rebuilding according to the same standards, in the same areas and with the same dependencies could simply prepare the country for the next shock. Reconstruction must therefore be conceived as an opportunity to strengthen building standards, modernize energy systems, secure water networks, improve transportation infrastructure, reinforce early warning systems and protect ecosystems that themselves play an economic role in coastal protection and tourism attractiveness.

This approach leads to a redefinition of tourism competitiveness. For a long time, destinations were compared primarily on the basis of price, the quality of hotel infrastructure, landscape appeal and air accessibility. In an increasingly unstable climate environment, a competitive destination must also be capable of functioning during crises and recovering rapidly when a shock occurs. Resilience therefore becomes a component of tourism quality. A hotel investor no longer considers only the number of potential visitors; the investor must also assess energy stability, water availability, infrastructure resistance, insurance capacity, financing conditions and the speed of reconstruction mechanisms. Similarly, an international traveler may be influenced by perceptions of a destination’s climate and health security. Resilience is therefore gradually becoming part of the tourism product itself.

This evolution explains the growing importance of the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre established in Jamaica. The existence of this institution gives the country a strategic opportunity extending far beyond the management of its own disasters. If Jamaica succeeds in transforming the experience acquired through successive crises into internationally recognized expertise, it could become a reference center for island economies and tourism destinations facing comparable risks. Resilience could then become a knowledge export sector. Jamaica could train foreign professionals, produce methodologies, develop risk assessment systems, participate in international programs and contribute to the design of public policies in other island states. This perspective is particularly significant because it would allow the country to convert geographical vulnerability into institutional advantage. A country that regularly experiences climate risks but develops superior expertise in managing them can progressively transform that experience into international influence.

The real economic challenge, however, remains the value created around the visitor. Growth in visitor arrivals is an essential indicator, but it is insufficient to measure tourism’s actual contribution to national development. Two destinations receiving a comparable number of visitors can produce radically different results depending on the share of expenditure that remains within the local economy. The ownership structure of establishments, the proportion of imported goods, the participation of Jamaican businesses in supply chains, wages, taxation, the capacity of local producers to supply hotels, average length of stay and expenditure per visitor determine the sector’s real economic depth. This distinction is essential for Jamaica because the pursuit of five million visitors and five billion dollars in revenues acquires its full meaning only if an increasing share of this activity is transformed into domestic productive capacity.

The question of economic leakages must therefore be placed at the heart of the analysis of Jamaican tourism. A tourism economy cannot completely eliminate capital outflows or imports. Hotels require equipment, technologies, products and services that are not necessarily available locally. International investors also have the right to repatriate part of their profits in accordance with the country’s economic and legal rules. The problem arises when the national economy remains insufficiently connected to the sector’s most profitable segments. A tourism sovereignty policy should therefore not seek to exclude foreign investors but to progressively increase the capacity of Jamaican businesses to become suppliers, partners, investors, owners and providers of high value added services. The central question then becomes the depth of economic linkages rather than the origin of capital.

It is this perspective that gives Tourism 3.0 potentially much greater significance than a simple sectoral reform. If the strategy effectively succeeds in strengthening connections among hotels, communities, producers, local businesses and creative industries, it could contribute to changing the structure of the Jamaican economy. Tourism would then become a development platform rather than a relatively autonomous sector. Revenues generated by visitors could stimulate agricultural production, food processing, logistics, digital services, transportation, construction, culture and training. Local businesses could use tourism demand as an initial market before exporting their products and services to other countries. The Jamaican destination would thus become a learning market for national enterprises and a laboratory through which exportable capabilities could be developed.

The next stage of the Jamaican model therefore does not consist simply of attracting more visitors. It consists of increasing the economic, technological, social and territorial value generated by each of them. This evolution is all the more important because tourism is one of the few sectors in which Jamaica already possesses sufficiently strong international recognition to serve as a platform for a diversification strategy. The country does not need to create a global industry from scratch. It already possesses a global industry. The real challenge is to use it to build more around it.

Jamaica therefore faces a strategic paradox that could determine part of its trajectory over the coming decade. Its tourism industry is sufficiently powerful to constitute a growth engine, yet sufficiently important to become a source of vulnerability when a major shock strikes the country. Its culture is sufficiently recognized to attract the world, yet that recognition must still be converted into deeper economic capabilities. Its institutional resilience is sufficiently developed to permit rapid recovery, yet this capacity must now be used to reduce future vulnerabilities. The Jamaican question is therefore no longer simply one of tourism growth. It is the transformation of an exceptional tourism advantage into a more diversified, productive and resilient economic architecture.

This transition constitutes precisely the passage from a Jamaica that knows how to attract the world to a Jamaica that knows how to derive greater value from its relationship with the world. The difference may appear subtle; in reality, it is fundamental to the economic sovereignty of a small island state. The first logic measures success primarily through the intensity of incoming flows. The second measures success through the capacity of those flows to sustainably strengthen the national productive fabric. It is this second logic that must be examined in the following sequence, particularly through the questions of value capture, agriculture, supply chains, communities and the economic model of Jamaican tourism.

AGRICULTURE: THE MOST CONCRETE TEST OF TOURISM SOVEREIGNTY

Agriculture is probably the field in which Jamaica can most clearly measure the difference between tourism growth that increases financial flows and economic transformation that sustainably strengthens national capabilities. This relationship is neither theoretical nor new. For several years, Jamaican authorities have sought to establish stronger connections between agricultural producers and tourism establishments, particularly through the Tourism Linkages Network and the Agri Linkages Exchange, known as ALEX. The principle is economically simple but politically decisive: when hotels, restaurants and other tourism related businesses can purchase more competitive products from Jamaican producers, a larger share of tourism expenditure circulates within the national economy before eventually leaving the country. Tourism then becomes not merely a consumer of imported products and international services, but also a domestic market capable of stimulating agricultural production, rural incomes, investment and employment. This relationship is particularly important in a small island economy where every additional dollar of demand can generate very different effects depending on whether it finances an import or triggers a domestic production chain. Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism officially defines the Tourism Linkages Network as an instrument designed to strengthen connections between tourism and productive sectors, particularly agriculture and manufacturing, with the objective of increasing consumption of goods and services that can be competitively supplied locally, creating employment and retaining more foreign exchange within the country.

The experience of ALEX demonstrates that this orientation can produce measurable results when supported by appropriate market infrastructure. According to data communicated by the Ministry of Tourism, the platform had registered approximately 2,000 farmers in 2025 and facilitated the sale in 2024 of approximately 3 million kilograms of agricultural products worth more than 450 million Jamaican dollars. During the first four months of 2025, revenues generated for farming communities had already exceeded 100 million Jamaican dollars. These figures represent only part of the agricultural exchanges between domestic production and the tourism sector, but they demonstrate the value of a mechanism capable of directly connecting agricultural supply with hotel demand. The essential point is therefore not the absolute size of these amounts relative to the Jamaican economy as a whole. Their importance lies in the model they illustrate. A digital platform, when combined with logistics, quality standards and precise knowledge of demand, can reduce certain asymmetries that traditionally prevent small producers from accessing major buyers. The agricultural problem then becomes not only one of production, but also one of the capacity to organize a reliable relationship among production, processing, storage, transportation, certification, payment and consumption.

This distinction is fundamental because one of the principal obstacles to local tourism supply does not necessarily lie in the absence of Jamaican producers capable of supplying certain goods. It often lies in the gap between what a major tourism company requires and what an individual producer is able to guarantee. Hotels seek regular volumes, precise health standards, consistent quality, predictable delivery schedules, competitive prices and the ability to maintain supply when climatic conditions or markets change. A small producer may be perfectly capable of producing an excellent product while being unable, alone, to guarantee regular deliveries corresponding to the needs of a large establishment. The weakness is therefore not necessarily agricultural; it may be organizational and logistical. This is why a food sovereignty strategy linked to tourism cannot be limited to encouraging farmers to produce more. It must build the economic infrastructure that enables a multitude of producers to collectively respond to a large and demanding market.

The question of storage becomes decisive here. Agricultural production intended for tourism cannot be organized solely according to the natural rhythm of harvesting. Hotels operate throughout the year, visitors arrive according to seasonal cycles, and establishments must maintain consistent quality regardless of fluctuations in supply. Without sufficient storage, processing and preservation capacity, producers can experience significant losses while buyers turn to foreign suppliers capable of immediately guaranteeing the required volumes. Cold chain infrastructure becomes particularly important for fruits, vegetables, dairy products, seafood and processed foods. Road infrastructure and transportation services also play a decisive role because an agricultural product that is competitive when it leaves the farm can lose its competitiveness when logistical costs increase or delivery times become unpredictable. Tourism sovereignty is therefore built as much in warehouses, distribution centers and transportation networks as it is on farms.

This reality explains the importance of Jamaica’s Tourism Supply Logistics Centre project, presented in 2026 as a major component of Tourism 3.0. The Ministry of Tourism describes this infrastructure as intended to connect tourism demand more effectively with Jamaican production through improved coordination of procurement, demand forecasting, warehousing, cold chain systems and supplier organization. The project is being developed in collaboration with ministries responsible for industry, investment, agriculture, fisheries and mining and is also intended to serve as a broader platform for coordinating tourism supply. This development is particularly significant because it reflects a more mature understanding of the problem. Increasing the share of local products in tourism does not simply require a political preference for Jamaican products. Those products must be accessible, reliable, competitive and sufficiently abundant to satisfy international demand. The Local First policy, as presented by the government, follows precisely this logic. It does not officially seek to exclude foreign suppliers but to give Jamaican businesses greater opportunity to participate in supply chains when domestic production has the capacity to meet requirements.

This distinction is essential to prevent an economic sovereignty policy from becoming a policy of artificial protection. Jamaica cannot reasonably seek to produce domestically everything consumed by its tourism industry. Such a strategy would increase certain costs, could reduce the competitiveness of establishments and would not correspond to the realities of an island economy integrated into international trade. The real ambition must be more precise: identify categories of goods and services for which Jamaican production can become competitive, then invest in the capabilities required to progressively increase their market share. This approach requires detailed analysis of tourism demand, production capacities, logistics costs, quality standards, financing needs and opportunities for import substitution. It also requires recognizing that certain imports will remain rational and necessary. Economic sovereignty does not mean eliminating imports; it means having the capacity to determine which imports are necessary because they reflect a genuine economic advantage and which exist primarily because the national economy has not yet developed the required capabilities.

Jamaican agriculture can therefore be regarded as a laboratory for this new conception of sovereignty. Tourism creates solvent, international and relatively predictable demand for a wide variety of food products. This demand can become an investment driver in rural areas if producers have the guarantees necessary to increase production. It can also stimulate food processing, because hotels and restaurants do not consume only raw products. They require products that are prepared, packaged, standardized, processed and compliant with professional standards. A tomato, a fruit, an aromatic herb, a seafood product or meat can therefore become the starting point for a much larger value chain involving packaging, preservation, processing, distribution and marketing. The potential economic value of tourism agriculture therefore does not lie only in the price paid to the producer. It lies in the ability to build around primary production a set of industrial activities and services that remain within the territory.

This perspective also makes it possible to reinterpret the relationship between tourism and rural development. Under a traditional model, major tourism centers concentrate investment and employment while rural areas provide part of the resources required by the industry without necessarily capturing an equivalent proportion of the value. Under a more integrated model, agricultural regions themselves become components of the tourism system. Visitors can discover farms, local markets, fishing villages, culinary traditions, processed products and agricultural landscapes. Production then becomes both an economic activity and a component of the tourism experience. This evolution corresponds to the community based orientation increasingly promoted within Tourism 3.0, which seeks to strengthen connections among tourism, agricultural districts, fishing villages, heritage towns, Maroon communities and cultural corridors. The boundary between producer, territory and destination thus becomes less rigid. The territory itself becomes part of the tourism product.

This transformation can also strengthen food resilience. The experience of Melissa demonstrated that climate shocks can simultaneously disrupt agricultural production and tourism operations. Excessive dependence on imports can then become particularly costly when international supply chains themselves are disrupted. Developing greater national agricultural capacity will obviously not eliminate this vulnerability, but it can reduce certain risks and provide greater flexibility to the economy. Crop diversification, improved water infrastructure, soil management, agricultural insurance systems, access to financing and the dissemination of climate appropriate technologies then become instruments of tourism policy as much as agricultural policy. A visitor who consumes locally therefore does not merely contribute to income creation for a farmer. That visitor potentially contributes to strengthening a productive capacity that can also serve national food security.

The financial dimension of this transformation deserves particular attention. A farmer cannot respond to growing tourism demand without the capital required to increase production, purchase equipment, improve irrigation systems, meet health standards, store products and manage the time between production and payment. Small farms are particularly exposed to these constraints. Access to credit, insurance and guarantee mechanisms therefore becomes a central element of the policy connecting agriculture and tourism. The question is not merely whether a hotel wants to buy locally. It must also be determined whether the producer can invest sufficiently to become a reliable supplier to that hotel. From this perspective, public and financial institutions could play a catalytic role by reducing certain initial risks and facilitating access to productive investment. An effective economic sovereignty policy does not seek to replace the market; it seeks to correct the constraints preventing the local market from operating at full capacity.

The experience of ALEX provides an initial demonstration of the power of digital tools when applied to a concrete economic relationship. The platform reduces part of the information gap between producers and buyers. Farmers can identify demand, buyers can identify availability and unnecessary intermediaries can be reduced in certain transactions. But the next stage must consist of moving beyond simple matchmaking. Genuine transformation will emerge when data on tourism bookings, occupancy rates, seasons, menus, establishment requirements and agricultural production capacities can be used to improve planning. Better demand forecasting would allow producers to plan crops, processors to organize capacity and hotels to secure supplies. Economic intelligence thus becomes an invisible but essential infrastructure of tourism sovereignty.

This evolution directly aligns with the logic of Tourism 3.0, which seeks to make tourism an integrated economy connecting agriculture, manufacturing, logistics, culture, technology, transportation, finance, education and community enterprises. The importance of this architecture is considerable. It means that tourism success should no longer be evaluated solely on the basis of accommodation capacity or arrival volumes, but also on the density of connections created within the national economy. The more numerous, competitive and sustainable these connections become, the more tourism can function as a productivity multiplier. A hotel that buys locally creates agricultural demand. A producer who invests to meet that demand creates employment. A processing company that packages the product creates a new activity. A transportation company provides distribution. A bank finances the investment. A training institution develops skills. The international visitor thus becomes the starting point of an economic chain extending far beyond the initial tourism service.

This logic explains why the debate over tourism dollar retention must be deepened. Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism has cited a retention rate of 40.8% in discussions concerning policies to strengthen local linkages. This indicator must be interpreted cautiously, particularly because calculation methods and statistical boundaries may vary. Its analytical value, however, is real: it draws attention to the difference between the gross value generated by tourism and the value actually retained within the national economy. For a development strategy, this distinction is far more informative than a simple arrival figure. The fundamental question then becomes how to progressively increase this retention without compromising the destination’s international competitiveness. It is precisely within this space that industrial policy, agricultural policy, tourism policy and trade policy intersect.

Jamaica therefore possesses a particular opportunity within its tourism sector: to transform already existing international demand into an engine of national productive development. The country does not need to convince visitors to come before building its market. That market already exists. It must now build greater capacity around it. Agriculture can provide part of this capacity, but it will only be able to play its full role if it is connected to logistics, processing, financing, technology, training and quality standards. The success of ALEX, the ambitions of Local First and the Tourism Supply Logistics Centre project indicate that this architecture is beginning to take a more precise institutional form. The real test, however, will be the capacity of these initiatives to move from promising experiments to systemic transformation of national supply.

At this stage, the agricultural question reveals something deeper about Jamaican sovereignty. A state can remain fully open to international trade while seeking to increase its capacity to supply its own industries, develop its producers and retain more value within its territory. It can welcome international investors while giving greater space to national enterprises. It can continue importing what it cannot produce efficiently while developing sectors in which competitive domestic production is possible. This conception of sovereignty is compatible with globalization because it does not seek to abolish interdependence. It seeks to reduce unnecessary dependencies and increase the capacity to negotiate, produce and choose.

The agricultural question thus becomes one of the most concrete tests of Tourism 3.0. If tourism growth increases without producing a comparable increase in purchases from Jamaican producers, processing capacity, rural incomes and national enterprises, the transformation will remain partial. If, on the contrary, tourism expansion contributes to creating more predictable markets for farmers, modernizing logistics chains, stimulating food processing, strengthening rural territories and reducing certain foreign exchange leakages, tourism can genuinely begin to function as a national development policy. Success will therefore not be measured solely by what visitors spend during their stay, but by the entire range of economic activities that this expenditure enables, develops and finances within the country.

KINGSTON AND THE SHIFTING CENTER OF GRAVITY OF THE TOURISM ECONOMY

Kingston occupies a distinctive position within Jamaica’s national architecture. The capital is not only the country’s principal administrative and political center; it is also one of its most important reservoirs of cultural, intellectual, financial, and creative capital. Yet in the international tourism imagination, Jamaica is still largely represented through its major coastal destinations, hotel complexes, beaches, and seaside landscapes. This representation reflects an important economic reality, but it captures only part of the country’s tourism potential. Kingston possesses a different type of advantage, based less on the logic of the traditional beach holiday and more on culture, music, creative industries, business, international events, gastronomy, heritage, education, sport, and professional services. The strategic question is therefore not whether Kingston should replace the major coastal destinations, but whether the capital can become a second center of gravity capable of broadening the structure of tourism demand and, above all, increasing the proportion of value generated by Jamaican activities requiring higher levels of skills and expertise.

This distinction becomes particularly important in the context of post Melissa reconstruction. Damage to several tourism infrastructures has demonstrated that the geographical concentration of a strategic economic activity can itself constitute a source of vulnerability. A tourism economy distributed more broadly across different territories, products, and visitor profiles possesses, by definition, greater capacity to absorb a shock affecting a particular region. Kingston cannot replace the coastal destinations that constitute the historical strength of Jamaica’s tourism industry, but it can contribute to a more balanced architecture in which cultural tourism, business tourism, event tourism, and creative industries complement traditional leisure tourism. Territorial diversification therefore becomes a component of economic resilience.

Kingston possesses, above all, an advantage that few destinations could artificially reproduce: it is associated with an essential part of Jamaica’s global cultural history. Reggae music, the development of dancehall, the history of recording studios, the legacy of Bob Marley, the trajectories of numerous artists, historic neighborhoods, gastronomy, cultural institutions, and creative spaces have helped make the capital far more than an administrative center. Kingston is one of the places where contemporary Jamaican identity was transformed into a global phenomenon. This concentration of cultural capital creates considerable economic potential, provided that the city can convert its heritage into experiences, services, events, and creative activities whose value remains more substantially within the territory.

Cultural tourism follows a different logic from conventional beach tourism. The visitor who comes primarily for the beach seeks an environment, a climate, leisure infrastructure, and quality of service. The cultural visitor also seeks history, identity, places, people, practices, works, and an intellectual or emotional experience. This difference profoundly alters the economic structure of the stay. Culture can multiply interactions between visitors and local businesses because it is much more difficult to confine within a hotel complex. A concert, heritage tour, recording studio, gastronomic market, exhibition, culinary experience, or encounter with creators can potentially involve artists, guides, producers, restaurateurs, technicians, transport operators, photographers, designers, and digital companies. Tourism then becomes an entry point into a much broader creative economy.

This perspective directly connects with the question of cultural value capture developed in the earlier sections of this report. Jamaica possesses an exceptional capacity to produce global symbols, but the symbolic power of a nation does not automatically guarantee economic control over the assets derived from that power. Kingston could become the place where this contradiction begins to be resolved. An ambitious policy could organize around the capital a genuine ecosystem comprising studios, performance venues, specialized schools, production companies, digital agencies, video game businesses, audiovisual production firms, music labels, distribution platforms, archival centers, universities, and creative spaces. Tourism would provide immediate demand, while these businesses could subsequently export their services and content to international markets. The city would therefore no longer be merely a tourism destination; it would become a global cultural production center.

The economic stakes are considerable because creative industries possess a particularly attractive characteristic for a small island economy: they can generate international value without requiring all physical goods to move across borders. A song, film, graphic work, software application, audiovisual production, advertising campaign, or digital experience can be created in Kingston and consumed simultaneously in dozens of countries. The geographical constraint that traditionally limits island economies therefore becomes less restrictive. Digital connectivity enables part of Jamaica’s intellectual capital to cross borders without requiring producers to leave the territory. This does not mean that technology eliminates structural constraints. It means that the relationship between territory and exports is fundamentally changing.

The question of intellectual property rights therefore becomes central. If Jamaica wants to transform its culture into an international industry, it must strengthen the ability of its creators to understand, protect, negotiate, and monetize their rights. Intellectual property is one of the principal mechanisms through which cultural creation can become a durable economic asset. Without effective protection, music distributed worldwide can generate enormous cultural influence while producing comparatively limited value for its country of origin. Conversely, a strategy combining creation, rights management, international distribution, legal training, and entrepreneurial development can enable artists and local companies to retain a much larger share of the value generated.

This issue becomes even more urgent with the transformation brought about by artificial intelligence. Generative technologies reduce certain production costs and open new markets, but they also raise major questions concerning creators’ rights, the use of existing works, remuneration, authenticity, and control over cultural data. For a country whose musical identity possesses such strong international recognition as Jamaica, artificial intelligence therefore cannot be viewed solely as a technological sector. It becomes a question of cultural policy, intellectual property, and economic sovereignty. The ability to digitize archives, preserve catalogs, train specialists, develop platforms, and defend the rights of Jamaican creators could determine a significant share of the country’s cultural value over the coming decades.

Kingston also possesses considerable potential in business and event tourism. An international capital does not depend solely on travelers seeking sunshine. It can host conferences, diplomatic summits, academic meetings, festivals, sporting competitions, professional exhibitions, and cultural events. These visitors often have different consumption patterns and can generate broader economic activity across professional services, transportation, restaurants, communications, technology, and event infrastructure. A capital’s ability to organize international events on a regular basis is also a diplomatic instrument. Every conference hosted in Kingston becomes an opportunity to showcase the country’s institutions, companies, universities, and professional capabilities.

This diplomatic dimension deserves serious consideration. Jamaica has long enjoyed international influence greater than its demographic and economic weight. Kingston could use this influence to become more fully a platform for dialogue between the Caribbean, North America, Latin America, Europe, and Africa. A capital that regularly hosts cultural, economic, scientific, and diplomatic events increases its visibility while creating markets for its businesses. Business tourism therefore ceases to be merely a commercial activity and becomes part of economic diplomacy.

Universities represent another strategic lever. Kingston concentrates several higher education and research institutions capable of contributing to a more knowledge based economy. The relationship among universities, businesses, the public sector, and creative industries could be substantially deepened. Students and researchers can participate in content production, technological development, tourism data analysis, new service design, and heritage preservation. International visitors can also be attracted through academic programs, conferences, artistic residencies, and scholarly exchanges. The capital can thus become a space where tourism, education, and intellectual production reinforce one another.

Sport represents another distinctly Jamaican dimension of this strategy. The country possesses an extraordinary international reputation in athletics, particularly sprinting, and that reputation is deeply connected to its contemporary identity. This sporting power can be transformed into a more structured economic activity through international events, training camps, university programs, specialized infrastructure, sports medicine and science services, audiovisual content, and tourism activities. The objective is not to artificially commercialize an achievement that already exists, but to build an economic ecosystem around it that enables more Jamaicans to participate in the value it generates.

Gastronomy can play a similar role. Jamaican culinary identity is already a powerful component of the tourism experience, but it can become more fully an export industry. Processed food products, sauces, spices, beverages, seafood, pastries, specialized restaurants, and culinary content can be incorporated into a broader strategy connecting tourism and international trade. A visitor who discovers a Jamaican product in Kingston can continue consuming it after returning home. The tourist experience thus becomes the first contact with a brand that can subsequently find international markets. The destination becomes a commercial showcase.

Kingston’s ability to become a center of this transformation will nevertheless depend on the quality of its urban infrastructure. A cultural capital cannot function through heritage alone. It must offer reliable transportation, high quality digital connectivity, attractive public spaces, sufficient security, effective waste management, stable electricity, reliable water systems, and infrastructure capable of accommodating international visitors. Improving the urban experience therefore becomes a prerequisite for the tourism strategy. Kingston’s development cannot be separated from national infrastructure and resilience policy.

The city must also avoid a common mistake made by major tourism destinations: transforming cultural neighborhoods into settings designed primarily for visitors while gradually marginalizing the populations that give them their identity. Cultural tourism can only be sustainable if communities remain actors in their own heritage. Urban renewal, historic neighborhood revitalization, and the creation of tourism spaces should therefore be accompanied by mechanisms allowing residents, entrepreneurs, and local creators to participate in the value generated. Otherwise, tourism success could produce a form of economic and social displacement that ultimately weakens precisely the authenticity visitors seek.

This question directly connects with the concept of Tourism 3.0. If Jamaica’s new tourism architecture genuinely intends to move from a logic of volume toward a logic of value, Kingston can become one of the principal testing grounds for this transformation. The capital offers the possibility of measuring not only arrivals and expenditures, but also skilled employment creation, revenues generated by cultural enterprises, service exports, private investment, attendance at cultural institutions, audiovisual production, intellectual property held by Jamaican actors, and community participation. Such an approach would produce a much more comprehensive picture of tourism’s real contribution to the economy.

The regional dimension is equally important. Kingston could become a Caribbean center for cultural production and creative services precisely because Jamaica possesses an influence that extends beyond its borders. Artists, entrepreneurs, students, researchers, and professionals from other CARICOM states could participate in networks based in Jamaica. Productions could be developed in Kingston while incorporating talent from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Haiti, Guyana, the Bahamas, and other territories. The capital could therefore become a platform for the circulation of talent and ideas across the English speaking Caribbean while developing stronger connections with the French, Spanish, and Portuguese speaking Caribbean.

This possibility would be particularly important in a context where small Caribbean markets are seeking to overcome fragmentation. A Jamaican creative company operating in a limited domestic market may struggle to achieve the economies of scale required to compete with major international platforms. But a regional ecosystem can considerably expand the base of consumers, talent, and partners. Kingston could therefore play a role similar to that of a regional hub, not by centralizing all Caribbean activities, but by providing infrastructure and expertise capable of connecting different markets.

Kingston’s development could also strengthen Jamaica’s international position in its relations with Africa. The capital already possesses strong cultural legitimacy among many African and diasporic communities. This relationship could be deepened through festivals, audiovisual coproductions, university exchanges, music programs, entrepreneurial initiatives, and events dedicated to creative industries. Kingston could become a meeting point between African and Caribbean cultural economies, creating a new geography of cooperation that moves beyond older economic routes dominated by North America and Europe.

This orientation would correspond to a more modern conception of diplomacy. States no longer build influence solely through embassies and government agreements. Cities, universities, businesses, artists, digital platforms, and international events also participate in the construction of national power. Kingston already possesses an international brand that allows it to operate across several of these dimensions simultaneously. The real challenge is to convert that reputation into durable economic networks.

Air connectivity therefore becomes strategic. A capital seeking to become an international center must be able to accommodate visitors, artists, investors, researchers, and professionals efficiently. Air routes, airport quality, hotel capacity, urban transportation, and smooth entry procedures are therefore instruments of competitiveness. Tourism policy cannot be separated from transport policy. Every logistical constraint that increases the cost or difficulty of reaching Kingston potentially reduces the city’s ability to develop cultural and professional tourism.

The same reasoning applies to digital connectivity. An international creative economy depends on the internet, data infrastructure, cybersecurity, cloud services, and the capacity to conduct reliable digital transactions. A city seeking to attract creative companies and international events must be as digitally connected as it is physically connected. Kingston can seek to build a specific advantage by combining its cultural assets with the technological capabilities of a new generation of Jamaican professionals.

Kingston’s real potential therefore lies in the convergence of several economies that are often analyzed separately. Tourism provides international demand. Culture provides identity. Creative industries provide intellectual production. Universities provide skills. Digital technology provides export capacity. Events provide international visibility. Diplomacy provides networks. The diaspora provides external connections. The city provides the territory where these elements can meet. When these dimensions are designed as a system, Kingston ceases to be merely Jamaica’s administrative capital and becomes strategic infrastructure for national power.

The transformation will not be automatic. A cultural city can lose its advantage if it fails to protect its creators, maintain its infrastructure, remain affordable for young talent, or prevent tourism growth from becoming dominated primarily by external actors. Public policy must therefore seek a balance between international openness and the development of local capabilities. Foreign investors must be able to find a competitive environment in Kingston, but Jamaican companies must also be able to grow, access financing, and participate in international markets.

This is precisely where the concept of sovereignty developed throughout this report acquires its full significance. Sovereignty does not mean preventing foreign capital from entering Kingston. It means ensuring that the entry of such capital also contributes to the development of national capabilities. It does not mean artificially protecting local companies from competition. It means creating the conditions necessary for them to become sufficiently productive to compete. It does not mean freezing Jamaican culture into an unchanging heritage. It means allowing that culture to continue evolving while giving those who create it greater control over its economic value.

Kingston can therefore become one of the places where Jamaica answers the central question of this report: how can an extraordinary capacity for influence be transformed into genuine national capacity to choose? The answer lies not only in constitutional decisions, trade agreements, or infrastructure investments. It also lies in the ability of a city to organize its cultural, human, technological, and economic resources so that it can generate more value from what it already possesses.

The Jamaican capital has precisely this raw material. Its history is known. Its music is known. Its artists are known. Its sporting influence is known. Its identity is known. The world does not need to be convinced of Kingston’s cultural importance. What remains to be built is the economic architecture that will allow this international recognition to generate more companies, skilled employment, intellectual property, exportable services, and domestic investment.

From this perspective, Kingston could represent the second great transformation of Jamaica’s model. The first consisted in transforming the island’s territory and identity into an international tourism destination. The second would consist in transforming that destination into a platform for cultural, intellectual, technological, and economic production. Tourism would remain essential, but it would no longer be the endpoint of the system. It would become one of its engines.

The difference may appear subtle; in reality, it is fundamental. In the first model, Jamaica welcomes the world. In the second, it welcomes the world while producing more for it. This transition could enable Kingston to become not only the capital of Jamaica, but one of the Caribbean’s most influential intellectual, cultural, and economic centers.

CULTURE AS INFRASTRUCTURE OF POWER

Jamaica possesses a characteristic that conventional economic indicators can only partially measure: its global influence is considerably greater than the material scale of its territory. This disproportion is not accidental. It results from a historical ability to transform a particular national experience into a universal cultural language. Jamaican music, reggae, dancehall, spiritual traditions, literature, gastronomy, fashion, social practices, athletics, and the figures who have carried this identity around the world have constructed an image of Jamaica that extends far beyond the island’s borders. In the contemporary economy, this capacity constitutes a strategic asset. It can attract visitors, influence consumers, facilitate diplomatic relations, support exports, and give Jamaican companies a differentiation advantage that competing economies cannot simply reproduce through financial investment. Yet this cultural power remains insufficiently converted into national economic capacity. Jamaica possesses global cultural influence; it must now build the architecture that allows that influence to become more intellectual property, more companies, more skilled employment, more exports, and more revenue retained within the country.

This transformation first requires changing the way culture is regarded within economic policy. For a long time, culture was associated primarily with identity, heritage, diplomacy, and international image. These dimensions remain essential, but they are no longer sufficient. In a global economy dominated by data, digital platforms, audiovisual content, brands, software, immersive experiences, and intangible assets, culture has become a direct component of competitiveness. A song, film, brand, photograph, graphic work, audiovisual production, or cultural experience can circulate globally without requiring the same physical infrastructure as traditional industrial sectors. For an island economy facing constraints of territory, transportation, and scale, this characteristic represents an exceptional opportunity.

Jamaica already possesses a global brand whose construction would have required generations for almost any other economy. The word Jamaica immediately evokes a set of images, sounds, and references. This recognition constitutes a form of intangible capital. It reduces certain market entry costs because the country does not need to create an exportable identity from scratch. When a Jamaican artist, food company, audiovisual producer, or fashion designer enters a foreign market, they can potentially benefit from a cultural association that already exists in consumers’ minds. This situation creates an advantage comparable, in economic logic, to that enjoyed by certain major national brands when they export products associated with an established reputation. The difference is that, in Jamaica’s case, this reputation simultaneously belongs to the state, communities, creators, artists, businesses, and diaspora, making its governance more complex but also considerably richer.

The central problem emerges when this reputation is widely used without the producers of Jamaican culture being able to capture a proportionate share of the economic value generated. Cultural globalization creates a particular asymmetry. Content can be created in a small country, become enormously popular abroad, be adopted by international companies, incorporated into commercial campaigns, distributed through global platforms, and contribute powerfully to a nation’s image, while remuneration, ownership, and distribution mechanisms may remain controlled elsewhere. Cultural power exists, but the corresponding economic power remains partially externalized. This distinction between influence and value capture constitutes one of the most important questions in Jamaica’s twenty first century strategy.

Reggae illustrates this situation perfectly. Its importance has long exceeded the Jamaican market. Its international recognition has contributed to the dissemination of Jamaican culture across virtually every region of the world. Its inscription by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity confirmed its international cultural significance. But heritage recognition is not, by itself, a development mechanism. It protects and promotes a cultural dimension; it does not guarantee that Jamaican artists, producers, sound engineers, studios, labels, publishers, heirs, and companies capture an optimal proportion of the revenues associated with the international exploitation of that culture.

The distinction between heritage and industry must therefore be taken extremely seriously. A culture can be protected without being sufficiently industrialized. It can be celebrated without being adequately financed. It can be globally recognized without possessing a sufficiently strong national infrastructure to organize its production and distribution. Jamaica must therefore avoid an artificial opposition between culture and commerce. Commercialization is not necessarily a threat to cultural authenticity. When organized under fair conditions, it can instead provide the resources necessary for preserving, transmitting, and renewing creative production. The real issue is not whether culture generates money; it is who controls the mechanisms through which that money is generated and distributed.

Intellectual property therefore becomes strategic infrastructure. Jamaican creators must be capable of understanding their rights, registering them, protecting them, negotiating licenses, managing digital revenues, and controlling, as far as possible, the conditions under which their works are used. This requires a combination of artistic, legal, financial, and entrepreneurial education. An exceptional musician may produce a globally recognized work without possessing the skills necessary to negotiate an international contract. A young producer may create extremely popular content without understanding the distinction between ownership of a recording, copyright, neighboring rights, synchronization, licensing, and platform revenues. A modern cultural policy must therefore train not only creators, but creators capable of becoming economic owners of their creations.

This question also concerns national archives. Jamaica possesses an exceptional audiovisual, musical, photographic, and documentary heritage. Part of this heritage potentially constitutes an economic, educational, and diplomatic asset. Digitizing, preserving, classifying, and securing these archives should therefore not be treated as merely administrative operations. They constitute an investment in national intellectual capital. Properly preserved archives can support film productions, documentaries, academic research, exhibitions, museums, educational platforms, and tourism experiences. They can also enable new generations of creators to work from an accessible and legally structured national memory.

Digitization is profoundly transforming this equation. During the era of physical distribution, cultural exports depended heavily on record companies, distributors, television networks, cinemas, and commercial networks located in major markets. Digital platforms have lowered certain barriers to access, but they have also created new forms of dependency. A creator can now reach a global audience directly, yet often remains dependent on platforms whose rules, algorithms, remuneration systems, and visibility mechanisms are determined outside the territory. Contemporary cultural sovereignty therefore does not mean that Jamaica must build its own global platforms in every field. It means that it must possess sufficient expertise and infrastructure to understand those platforms, negotiate with them, protect its creators, and develop alternatives where economically justified.

This issue is particularly important in the field of artificial intelligence. Generative tools can enable young Jamaican creators to produce music, images, films, animations, and content at dramatically lower costs. This democratization of production represents an exceptional opportunity for a small country. But it simultaneously introduces new questions concerning the use of existing works to train models, reproduction of artistic styles, imitation of voices, protection of artists’ identities, and remuneration of creators. Jamaica, whose musical identity is so distinctive, could be particularly exposed to these transformations. Jamaican sound and musical identity possess sufficient economic and symbolic value for their protection in the digital environment to become a matter of public policy.

The response, however, cannot consist of treating artificial intelligence solely as a threat. It can also become an instrument of cultural development. Analytical tools can facilitate the restoration of audio archives, translation, collection classification, historical research, and international dissemination. Production technologies can enable small Jamaican teams to create content that would previously have required substantial budgets. Digital systems can help artists identify audiences, understand markets, and develop distribution strategies. Artificial intelligence can therefore reduce certain economic barriers that have historically limited small creative industries.

The central question will be whether Jamaica remains primarily a consumer of cultural technologies developed elsewhere or can train a generation capable of adapting, using, and in certain fields producing them. This question directly connects with the logic developed earlier for Tourism 3.0. Technology must be conceived as a multiplier of national capacity. It should not merely make tourism businesses more efficient; it should also enable creators, producers, and cultural companies to reach new markets.

This transformation requires an adapted educational policy. Jamaican schools and universities must be able to prepare young people for professions located at the intersection of culture, commerce, and technology. Music, film, audiovisual production, animation, design, photography, architecture, video games, digital marketing, rights management, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and creative entrepreneurship can no longer be regarded as peripheral fields. In an economy where intangible value is increasing rapidly, they can become strategic sectors. A national development policy should therefore treat creative skills as productive capital in the same way as industrial, financial, or scientific skills.

This approach also makes it possible to rethink the Jamaican diaspora. Artists, producers, entrepreneurs, researchers, and professionals living abroad are not merely a population residing outside the country. They constitute a global network capable of contributing to the international distribution of Jamaican production. A producer based in London can open a commercial door for an artist from Kingston. An entrepreneur in Toronto can facilitate access to a North American market. A scholar in the United States can contribute to a research or training program. A film professional in Los Angeles can establish a coproduction with a Jamaican team. The diaspora thus becomes international distribution infrastructure.

This dimension also transforms the way Jamaica should approach cultural diplomacy. Embassies and consulates should not be the only instruments of representation. Artists, festivals, universities, entrepreneurs, restaurants, media organizations, digital platforms, and diaspora communities also participate in projecting the country. Culture can therefore become a decentralized form of diplomacy. A Jamaican concert in Paris, an exhibition in Accra, an audiovisual production in London, a conference in Toronto, or a festival in Kingston can generate diplomatic effects that do not necessarily pass through traditional channels.

The relationship with Africa acquires particular importance here. Jamaica possesses unique historical legitimacy to participate in building new cultural relations between Africa and the Caribbean. But this relationship should not remain confined to the symbolism of memory. Creative industries provide precisely the space where history can become contemporary cooperation. Music, film, and audiovisual coproductions could bring together Jamaican and African talent. Festivals could circulate between Kingston, Accra, Lagos, Freetown, Nairobi, and other cultural capitals. University programs could examine the shared trajectories of music, literature, and cultural industries. Companies could develop distribution platforms targeting African and Caribbean markets.

Such a strategy could give rise to a new South South cultural geography. For decades, much of the international circulation of Jamaican culture has been organized through North American and European markets. Those markets will remain essential, but they should no longer be the only gateways to the world. Africa represents a set of demographically dynamic, culturally diverse, and increasingly connected markets. Historical links between African and Caribbean populations can facilitate cooperation, but they will not be sufficient. Products, companies, investment, digital infrastructure, and commercial models will be needed to transform cultural proximity into economic relationships.

CARICOM represents another dimension of this strategy. Caribbean economies are fragmented, but their cultural industries possess remarkable capacity to cross borders. Music, literature, carnival, gastronomy, cinema, fashion, and visual arts could benefit from a more integrated regional market. Jamaica, given its cultural power, could play a leading role in building a Caribbean creative market. This does not mean that Kingston should absorb the cultural industries of other states. It means that Jamaica could help construct regional infrastructure for distribution, training, production, and financing.

This ambition also requires reforming financing mechanisms. Creative industries often face a particular difficulty: they possess significant intangible assets but limited physical collateral for traditional financing. A bank may find it more difficult to evaluate the future value of a music catalog, screenplay, or intellectual property than that of a building or machine. Creating financing mechanisms adapted to cultural assets could therefore enable more Jamaican companies to move from small independent production toward genuine industrial capacity.

Specialized funds, public guarantees, coproduction mechanisms, diaspora partnerships, and private investment structures could contribute to this evolution. Economic discipline, however, would remain indispensable. Public financing should not seek to arbitrarily select which artists will succeed. It should instead create conditions allowing a larger number of viable projects to access capital and markets. Cultural policy should support the ecosystem, not replace it.

Tourism can become the first market for this ecosystem. Visitors already seek Jamaican music, cuisine, history, and identity. But the objective should be to extend this consumption beyond the stay. A tourist attending a performance could subsequently purchase music. Someone discovering a Jamaican food brand could seek it out after returning home. A visitor to a historic site could access digital content. Someone participating in a festival could continue following the artists. The trip becomes the first stage in a longer commercial and cultural relationship. Physical tourism feeds the digital economy, while the digital economy in turn stimulates physical tourism.

This logic is particularly important for communities. A cultural model centralized in a few large companies could reproduce the same value concentration problems observed in some parts of tourism. Conversely, a model that enables communities to produce their own cultural experiences, events, content, and products can distribute benefits more broadly. Maroon traditions, rural communities, historic towns, and coastal territories can therefore participate in building a diversified cultural offering. Heritage becomes not merely something displayed to visitors, but a source of economic activity controlled in part by those who carry it.

This approach must nevertheless respect a fundamental requirement: cultural authenticity cannot be reduced to a tourism product. Communities must retain the right to determine what may be presented, how it may be presented, and under what conditions. A cultural promotion policy that transforms traditions into standardized performances could ultimately destroy part of the value it seeks to exploit. Cultural sovereignty therefore also means the ability of communities to define the limits of commercializing their heritage.

Jamaica has an opportunity here to construct a particularly modern doctrine. Culture could be considered national infrastructure in the same way as ports, roads, electricity networks, or telecommunications. This may seem surprising, but it corresponds to the evolution of the global economy. Infrastructure connects people, goods, and activities. Culture does the same thing at another level. It connects a country to markets, communities, imaginations, and consumer networks. It reduces the symbolic distance between Jamaica and the rest of the world. It creates trust, curiosity, and recognition that can subsequently be transformed into economic relationships.

The comparison with physical infrastructure nevertheless reveals an important weakness. A port can be measured by processing capacity. A road can be measured in kilometers. An electricity network can be assessed through generation capacity. Cultural value is much more difficult to measure. It is therefore necessary to develop new indicators. Jamaica could measure revenues generated by creative industries, the value of cultural exports, royalties collected, skilled jobs created, private investment, the number of international productions made in the country, the value of catalogs owned by Jamaican companies, creative business growth, and the proportion of revenues actually retained within the national economy.

These indicators would complement traditional tourism statistics. A destination can increase arrivals without proportionally increasing its cultural capacity. Conversely, a cultural strategy can generate international revenue without immediately increasing tourist numbers. Success must therefore be assessed across several dimensions. Visitor numbers remain important, but they should be linked to the value of cultural exports, the growth of creative industries, and national capacity to own and manage intangible assets.

This transformation would also have consequences for Jamaica’s international image. The country is often represented through a few extraordinarily powerful symbols. Bob Marley, reggae, beaches, sprinting, and the tropical image are highly effective elements of international communication, but a long term national strategy cannot depend indefinitely on the same representations. Jamaica must continue producing new stories. It must show the world a contemporary society that is innovative, academic, technological, entrepreneurial, and creative. Cultural power is sustainable only when it remains capable of renewal.

This capacity for renewal may be Kingston’s principal advantage. The city possesses a cultural history strong enough to attract the world, but also a young and creative population capable of producing new expressions. The strategy should therefore not consist solely of preserving the past. It should enable the present to become the heritage of the future. A society that only commemorates its great figures eventually turns its culture into a museum. A society that invests in new creators transforms its heritage into a living system.

Jamaica must therefore think about its culture on three levels simultaneously. It must preserve what constitutes its historical heritage. It must fairly monetize already recognized cultural assets. Above all, it must create the conditions allowing a new generation to produce the next great Jamaican references. This third dimension is the most important because it determines the continuity of cultural power.

Culture can then become a genuine multiplier of sovereignty. It strengthens tourism attractiveness, facilitates diplomatic relations, supports exports, attracts talent, stimulates creative industries, reinforces national image, and creates opportunities for the diaspora. It allows a small state to exercise influence greater than its material resources. But this influence becomes durable strategic capacity only when it is organized, financed, protected, and connected to a productive economy.

This is precisely the transition Jamaica must now undertake. The country has already demonstrated that it can produce global culture. The next step is to demonstrate that it can build a global economy around that culture without losing control over what gives it value.

Jamaican cultural power should therefore no longer be regarded as an accessory to the tourism economy. It should be recognized as one of the fundamental infrastructures of national strategy. It can attract visitors before they even book their tickets. It can create demand for Jamaican products before those products leave the island. It can open markets that would otherwise be much more difficult for a small economy to enter. It can build networks with Africa, the diaspora, CARICOM, and major Western markets. It can also give Jamaica a distinctive voice in international debates on culture, intellectual property, digital technology, and artificial intelligence.

But this power will become fully strategic only if Jamaica is willing to ask an uncomfortable question: who owns the value created by the Jamaican image? This question, more than visitor numbers or international visibility, will determine the economic depth of Jamaican cultural power over the next decade.

If the answer remains primarily external, Jamaica will retain remarkable influence but limited value capture. If it succeeds in building institutions, companies, skills, financial mechanisms, and digital infrastructure capable of retaining more of that value, it can transform one of its greatest historical advantages into genuine strategic capacity. Culture would then no longer be merely what Jamaica gives to the world. It would also become one of the means through which Jamaica builds its capacity to decide what it wants to be in the world.

THE ECONOMIC DEPTH OF TOURISM: AGRICULTURE, VALUE CHAINS, LOCAL INDUSTRY AND PRODUCTIVE SOVEREIGNTY

The true challenge facing Jamaican tourism is no longer its ability to attract more visitors. That capacity has now been demonstrated. In 2024, Jamaica welcomed approximately 4.27 million visitors and generated nearly US$4.35 billion in tourism revenues, according to data communicated by the Ministry of Tourism. The sector thus confirmed its central place in the national economy after a period marked by the pandemic, disruptions to air transport and several climate events. But an economy does not necessarily become more sovereign simply because it increases its export revenues. The decisive question is how that wealth circulates within the territory. Part of tourist spending can finance Jamaican producers, national companies, skilled workers, farmers, transport operators, artists, engineers and local services. Another part can immediately leave the country through imports, payments to foreign suppliers, repatriated profits, international services or equipment produced elsewhere. Between these two realities lies the central question of tourism’s economic depth.

This distinction is fundamental to understanding the next stage of Jamaica’s development. For several decades, tourism performance was naturally measured through arrivals, overnight stays, available rooms, hotel investment and foreign exchange revenues. These indicators remain indispensable, but they cannot by themselves measure tourism’s structural contribution to the transformation of the national economy. A country can receive several million visitors and retain a relatively narrow productive economy if the goods consumed by those visitors are predominantly imported, if high value added services are controlled from abroad and if domestic companies remain confined to the least remunerative segments of the chain. Conversely, a tourism sector of comparable size can become a powerful instrument of industrial development when it creates stable demand for agriculture, food processing, construction, logistics, technology, financial services, culture, training and creative industries.

It is precisely this transformation that gives Tourism 3.0 its strategic importance. In 2026, Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism presents this new architecture as an evolution of the tourism model toward an integrated economy in which agriculture, manufacturing, logistics, culture, technology, transport, finance, education and community enterprises are more closely connected to the international demand created by visitors. The Ministry also states that it intends to accelerate the Local First policy in order to increase domestic sourcing and reduce import related leakages. This orientation is not a complete break with previous policies. Rather, it represents an attempt to give new coherence to an economic linkages strategy that Jamaica has been developing for several years through the Tourism Linkages Network.

The Tourism Linkages Network is particularly important in this regard. Established in 2013, it was specifically mandated to strengthen connections between tourism and other productive sectors, notably agriculture, manufacturing and entertainment. Its official objective is to increase the consumption of goods and services that can be competitively produced locally, create employment and retain more foreign exchange within the Jamaican economy. The mechanism includes working groups dedicated to agriculture and manufacturing, whose role is to identify obstacles preventing local producers from meeting tourism demand. The very existence of this institutional architecture demonstrates that Jamaican authorities have long recognized the problem. The question in 2026 is therefore no longer whether links between tourism and the national economy should be created. It is how to make those links sufficiently deep, competitive and large scale to alter the country’s productive structure.

Agriculture is the first test of this ambition. Tourism represents a permanent demand for fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat, fish, beverages, spices, processed foods and a multitude of food inputs. In an island economy, this demand possesses considerable strategic value because it offers domestic producers a relatively predictable and solvent market. But the existence of demand does not automatically guarantee the ability of local supply to meet it. International hotels require regular volumes, precise sanitary standards, consistent quality, reliable logistics, predictable delivery times and competitive prices. A small producer may perfectly well produce an excellent product without being capable of supplying the quantities required each week by a large hotel complex. The problem is therefore not necessarily a lack of agricultural production. It is the absence of an architecture capable of aggregating that production, standardizing it, storing it, transporting it and marketing it at the scale required by the tourism market.

Jamaica has begun addressing this difficulty through the Agri Linkages Exchange, known as ALEX. This digital platform directly connects farmers with buyers in the tourism sector in order to reduce intermediaries and facilitate the marketing of agricultural products. According to the Ministry of Tourism, approximately 2,000 farmers were registered on the platform in 2025. In 2024, ALEX facilitated the sale of approximately 3 million kilograms of produce worth more than J$450 million, while the first four months of 2025 had already generated approximately J$100 million in revenues for farming communities. The Ministry nevertheless notes that these figures represent only part of the agricultural transactions linked to tourism and that other procurement mechanisms generate considerably larger amounts. The strategic value of ALEX therefore lies not only in the amounts currently recorded. It lies in demonstrating that a relatively simple digital infrastructure can reduce transaction costs, improve market access and directly connect two sectors that previously operated with considerable fragmentation.

This experience makes it possible to identify a deeper transformation. Tourism can become an instrument of agricultural modernization when tourist demand is used to stimulate productivity, quality and the formalization of farms. A hotel requesting regular and certified products indirectly pushes suppliers to improve their practices. A restaurant chain seeking predictable volumes can encourage the creation of cooperatives or producer groups. Constant demand for certain fruits can encourage investment in plantations, irrigation systems and storage facilities. The need for rapid delivery can justify the creation of collection centers and cold chain systems. Tourism demand thus becomes an economic signal capable of directing agricultural investment.

But this relationship must not be designed solely around the needs of hotels. It must also protect producers’ interests. A local sourcing policy that simply requires major operators to purchase more from the domestic market could fail if farmers must absorb the additional costs associated with compliance, transportation, storage or financing. Productive sovereignty therefore requires a more balanced contractual relationship between producers and buyers. It requires appropriate financing mechanisms, insurance, storage infrastructure, transparent standards, market price information and, above all, stronger collective bargaining capacity among small suppliers.

The cold chain deserves particular attention. In a tropical island economy, the loss of part of agricultural production before it even reaches consumers represents a direct destruction of value. Tourism development provides an economic justification for investing in preservation infrastructure that could simultaneously serve tourism markets, urban markets and regional exports. Infrastructure intended for tourism can therefore generate benefits far beyond the hotel sector. It is precisely this multiplier logic that should be pursued in the next generation of public policies.

The second major area concerns manufacturing. A modern hotel consumes a considerable quantity of goods that are not always visible in the visitor experience: furniture, textiles, cleaning products, kitchen equipment, packaging, construction materials, processed foods, beverages, technical equipment, office supplies, decorative elements, sanitary products and a multitude of items required for the daily operation of establishments. When these goods are imported, tourist spending partially leaves the national economy before it has generated several cycles of domestic income. When a significant share of these products is manufactured in Jamaica, the same spending can support a much longer chain involving raw material purchases, industrial employment, logistics, maintenance, finance and professional services.

Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism had already identified this possibility. A demand study cited by the Ministry estimated the potential value of goods from the agricultural and manufacturing sectors required by tourism at J$391.6 billion, including J$352 billion for manufacturing and J$39.6 billion for agriculture. The Ministry explicitly presented the strengthening of productive linkages and the substitution of certain imports as a means of reducing economic leakages. Although these estimates should be interpreted as indications of potential demand rather than as a current measure of tourism related imports, they reveal the scale of the market that tourism represents for domestic production.

The real industrial question is therefore not whether Jamaica can manufacture everything its tourism sector requires, but which categories of products it already has an advantage in producing or could reasonably develop such an advantage in. A rational strategy would not seek self sufficiency. It would select sectors in which local production can become competitive through tourism demand. Food processing, beverages, certain furniture products, textiles, high value handicrafts, cosmetics, specific materials, maintenance equipment, digital solutions, design services and certain segments of construction could constitute priority areas. The objective would be to create progressive economies of scale by using the tourism market as an initial outlet before enabling companies to conquer regional and international markets.

This logic could produce a major change in the structure of Jamaican small and medium sized enterprises. Tourism already offers an international market physically located inside the country. This is an exceptional characteristic. A local company supplying an international hotel is not working only for the Jamaican market. It is indirectly supplying a global clientele. It can therefore use that relationship as a quality certification and commercial experience. If public policies properly support this process, a local supplier capable of meeting the requirements of an international hotel chain can subsequently become a supplier to other Caribbean, North American or European markets.

Tourism can thus function as a platform for the internationalization of Jamaican companies. This is probably one of the most important dimensions of productive sovereignty. The real objective is not to replace every import with a local product. It is to ensure that Jamaican companies become sufficiently competitive to enter international value chains. Import substitution should therefore be only one stage. The ultimate objective must be the expansion of productive capabilities.

This distinction is essential because a poorly designed national preference policy could increase tourism costs and reduce the destination’s competitiveness. The Local First principle can only be sustainable if it first means Local Competitive. Jamaican products should be preferred when they have the necessary quality, price, reliability and logistical capacity. In other cases, imports remain rational. Productive sovereignty is not a rejection of the global economy. It is the capacity to participate in the global economy from a stronger productive base.

This approach also gives new importance to vocational training. If Jamaica wants to increase the domestic share of tourism value chains, it will need workers capable of meeting the requirements of more complex segments. Tourism no longer requires only traditional hospitality skills. It requires specialists in logistics, maintenance, engineering, energy management, digital systems, cybersecurity, marketing, accounting, architecture, construction, food processing and data analysis. The Ministry of Tourism itself emphasizes that the sector’s evolution is opening opportunities in logistics, agriculture, technology, creative industries, construction and wellness services.

This evolution transforms the very conception of tourism employment. In the traditional model, tourism is often perceived as a service sector employing mainly hotel personnel. In the economic depth model, it becomes a demand system that mobilizes skills throughout the economy. An engineer designing an energy system for a hotel complex, a developer building a local booking platform, an agronomist improving production for hotels, a designer developing a furniture line, a cold chain specialist or an accountant supporting a supplier company all participate in the tourism economy without necessarily working in a hotel.

This transformation is particularly important for Jamaica’s youth. The more complex the tourism value chain becomes, the more it can generate skilled and better paid employment. The challenge is therefore to progressively move part of the workforce from the operational end of the sector toward functions involving design, management, technology, production and ownership. This is also why local ownership must be incorporated into the analysis. An economy can employ many people in tourism while retaining limited national decision making capacity if ownership of the most profitable assets remains heavily concentrated abroad.

Local ownership does not mean excluding foreign capital. That would be contrary to the needs of an island economy and to the realities of global tourism development. It means, rather, that Jamaica must progressively expand opportunities for investors, entrepreneurs, pension funds, banks, cooperatives and members of the Jamaican diaspora to participate in the ownership of tourism assets and the businesses that supply them. Foreign capital can build hotels. Jamaican capital must also be able to build businesses around those hotels.

This architecture makes it possible to understand why the concept of economic leakage should not be used as an accusation against international investors. Leakages are a normal feature of an open economy. The policy question is to determine which leakages are necessary, which can be reduced and, above all, which domestic capabilities must be built so that the share of value retained locally increases over time. Jamaica should not seek to eliminate interdependence. It should improve its position within that interdependence.

The construction sector represents another strategic lever in this regard. Reconstruction after Melissa is creating significant demand for materials, equipment, engineering services and labor. If this demand is primarily met through imports and external companies, reconstruction risks producing an economic effect below its potential. If it is used to strengthen Jamaican capabilities in materials, engineering, architecture, maintenance and resilience technologies, it can become an indirect industrial policy. Reconstruction can then generate skills that are exportable to other island states facing similar climate risks.

This perspective connects with the evolution of Jamaica’s regional role. In December 2025, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism was appointed chair of a new Caribbean Tourism Organization committee focused on regional tourism supply, with the objective of strengthening links between tourism, agriculture, manufacturing and creative industries and retaining more tourism revenues within Caribbean economies. This initiative is particularly significant. It suggests that Jamaica is beginning to view value chain development not only as a national issue but as a regional one.

The entire Caribbean suffers from a problem of scale. Several states import similar goods for their hotels, restaurants and tourism infrastructure even though some of these products could be manufactured within the region. Deeper integration of supply chains could therefore make it possible to create economies of scale that cannot be achieved on each island separately. Jamaica could play a platform role in certain segments, while other states develop their own specializations. The objective would be to transform a multitude of small, fragmented markets into a regional tourism production system.

This evolution would give CARICOM a new dimension. Regional integration would no longer be only a matter of trade or diplomacy. It would become a production strategy. Jamaican hotels could purchase certain products from Trinidad and Tobago, particular food specialties from Barbados, certain manufactured goods from the Dominican Republic, digital services from other regional hubs and, in return, export their own goods and services. National sovereignty would not disappear within this architecture. It could be strengthened by increased regional capacity.

Culture must be integrated into this value chain. The Jamaican tourism experience is already deeply connected to music, gastronomy, heritage, sport, traditions and national identity. But this cultural dimension remains insufficiently connected to industrial mechanisms. A visitor who consumes Jamaican music, purchases a cultural object, visits a local restaurant or participates in a community experience generates value that can be distributed much more broadly when local creators and businesses own the rights, brands, infrastructure and marketing channels.

Gastronomy provides a particularly powerful example. A Jamaican dish served in a hotel can become an international showcase for the country’s agriculture, food processing and culture. If the ingredients are produced locally, processed locally, prepared by local professionals and associated with cultural storytelling controlled by Jamaican businesses, the same meal becomes simultaneously a tourism experience, an agricultural demand signal, a manufacturing activity and a cultural product. Economic depth appears precisely when several sectors participate in the same expenditure.

This logic also makes it possible to understand the true meaning of the Local First policy. It is not simply about increasing the number of Jamaican products present in hotels. It is about making tourism a development architecture in which visitor spending passes through several layers of the domestic economy before leaving the country. The more spending passes through domestic producers and services, the higher its economic multiplier. The more it remains confined to the purchase of a hotel service whose inputs are largely sourced from abroad, the more limited its national impact remains.

The Ministry of Tourism has recently placed this logic at the center of Tourism 3.0. In July 2026, the government emphasized, among other priorities, the development of agricultural districts, fishing villages, heritage towns, Maroon communities and cultural corridors within the framework of Local First and community tourism. This orientation is particularly important because it broadens the definition of the sector. Tourism is no longer located only within hotel complexes. It becomes a relationship between visitors and the entire territory.

This is probably where reconstruction after Melissa can produce its deepest transformation. If Jamaica simply rebuilds the infrastructure that was destroyed, it will restore tourism capacity. If it simultaneously rebuilds supply networks, agricultural infrastructure, logistics systems, cold chains, industrial capabilities, digital services and community infrastructure, it can use the crisis to increase the productive resilience of the economy. The disaster then becomes not merely an event to repair but a turning point in the national economic structure.

Jamaican productive sovereignty must ultimately be understood as the capacity to transform global demand into domestic capabilities. The tourist comes from abroad, but the visitor’s spending can finance part of the domestic economy. Capital can come from abroad, but it can be used to develop local companies. Technologies can be imported, but they can subsequently be adapted, mastered and progressively produced locally. International value chains can provide markets, but they can also serve as schools of competitiveness for Jamaican businesses.

The success of Tourism 3.0 will therefore depend less on its communications power than on its capacity to modify the economic relationships between tourism and the rest of the country. Policy should be evaluated using indicators much more precise than visitor numbers. Jamaica will need to measure the share of tourism purchases made from Jamaican suppliers, the value of agricultural products sold to the sector, the growth of tourism linked manufacturing companies, the proportion of skilled employment, the share of local ownership, the number of companies able to export after joining tourism value chains, the value of locally produced digital services and the ability of communities to benefit directly from tourism flows.

Jamaica already possesses several of the institutions necessary for this transformation. The Tourism Linkages Network has existed for more than a decade. ALEX demonstrates that digital infrastructure can connect agricultural supply with tourism demand. The Tourism Enhancement Fund finances initiatives aimed, among other things, at strengthening supply chains, innovation, entrepreneurship and human capital. Public policy therefore has a real institutional foundation. The challenge is now one of scale, coordination and continuity.

The next step must be that of a fully articulated tourism industrial policy. Jamaica could identify the principal categories of goods and services currently imported by the sector, measure their value, determine which can be produced locally in the short, medium and long term, identify the obstacles to competitiveness and then direct financing, training and infrastructure toward those segments. Such an approach would be more effective than a general preference for national products because it would begin with concrete data on actual tourism demand.

It would also be necessary to avoid a classic mistake of import substitution policies: indefinitely protecting inefficient companies in the name of sovereignty. A domestic industry does not become strategic simply because it is local. It becomes strategic when it develops competitive capacity, creates productive employment, innovates, exports or reduces excessive external dependence. Productive sovereignty therefore requires both a preference for national development and a high standard of performance.

It is this combination that can enable Jamaica to move from a successful tourism economy to a transformative tourism economy. In the first model, the country welcomes the world. In the second, it uses its relationship with the world to strengthen its own capacity to produce.

The difference may appear subtle. It is actually fundamental. A Jamaica that receives five million additional visitors without profoundly changing its supply chains will remain a major tourism destination. A Jamaica that uses every million visitors to increase its agricultural production, industrial capabilities, technological skills, local enterprises, intellectual property and infrastructure will become something else: an island economy capable of converting international openness into economic sovereignty. It is this second trajectory that gives Tourism 3.0 its true historical significance.

JAMAICA AND THE CHALLENGE OF PRODUCTIVE SOVEREIGNTY: TRANSFORMING TOURISM INTO AN ECONOMIC ECOSYSTEM

Transforming Jamaican tourism into a genuine engine of economic sovereignty is probably one of the most important challenges of the coming decade. The question is no longer whether tourism should remain at the heart of the national economic model. It will, given its weight in external revenues, employment, investment, infrastructure and the country’s international image. The fundamental question is now different: how much of the wealth generated by each visitor can be retained, multiplied and reinvested in the Jamaican economy? As long as a substantial share of the value created by tourism remains concentrated in accommodation, international air transport, booking platforms, external supply chains and certain large international groups, an increase in visitor numbers does not guarantee a proportional increase in national wealth. A genuinely sovereign tourism strategy must therefore progressively shift the center of gravity of the model, making the visitor not merely a consumer of tourism services but the entry point into a much broader set of national value chains.

This evolution requires moving beyond a sectoral conception of tourism. In an island economy, tourism is inherently transversal. It mobilizes agriculture for hotel and restaurant food supplies, fisheries for seafood products, manufacturing for furniture, textiles, materials and equipment, transportation for visitor mobility, financial services for transactions and investment, telecommunications for connectivity, cultural industries for music and audiovisual production, handicrafts for local products, universities for education and research, technology companies for digital solutions and public administrations for infrastructure, security, regulation and environmental protection. When these sectors operate separately, tourism becomes a relatively successful but insufficiently integrated economic enclave. When they are organized around a common strategy, it can become a genuine platform for productive transformation.

Jamaica already possesses some of the conditions necessary for this evolution. Its cultural identity constitutes an exceptional international economic asset, its agriculture has significant diversification potential, its small and medium sized business sector can benefit from increased tourism demand, its diaspora represents a considerable source of capital and expertise, while its port, airport, digital and hotel infrastructure can serve as foundations for a more ambitious strategy. The central problem therefore lies less in the absence of assets than in their articulation. The challenge for the period from 2026 to 2035 will precisely be to build that articulation.

FROM THE TOURISM ECONOMY TO THE INTEGRATED TOURISM ECONOMY

The traditional model essentially rests on a relatively simple chain: visitor arrival, transportation, accommodation, food, leisure and departure. This architecture generates revenue, but it mechanically limits multiplier effects when the goods and services consumed are imported. A hotel that purchases a large proportion of its food abroad, its equipment abroad, its furniture abroad and part of its technical services from international suppliers can generate considerable tourism activity while leaving a relatively limited share of value added in the national economy.

True economic depth begins when tourism purchases become orders placed with Jamaican producers. A hotel that buys its fruits, vegetables, seafood, beverages, furniture, textiles, cleaning products, artwork and part of its equipment from domestic companies directly transforms tourism demand into productive demand. A restaurant that promotes Jamaican agricultural products creates additional demand for rural farms. A chef who develops cuisine based on local products contributes to the construction of a commercial identity. An artisan who sells creations to visitors transforms cultural heritage into income. A digital company that develops a booking system or management solution for tourism establishments transforms domestic expenditure into export potential.

The difference may appear technical, but it is fundamental. In the first model, tourism growth primarily increases the volume of transactions. In the second, it increases national productive capacity. Public policy should therefore measure not only international arrivals, average visitor spending or the number of available rooms, but also the sector’s local sourcing rate, the share of tourism expenditure retained in the national economy, the number of Jamaican suppliers integrated into hotel value chains, the proportion of local agricultural products consumed by tourism establishments and the value of creative and digital services exported through tourism.

This approach would make it possible to move from a tourism promotion policy to a genuine industrial policy for tourism.

AGRICULTURE AS THE FIRST PILLAR OF TOURISM DEPTH

One of the areas in which this transformation could produce the most significant effects is agriculture. Jamaica has a long agricultural tradition, a diverse climate favorable to a wide range of production, and an international reputation associated with several iconic products. Yet the existence of a large tourism industry does not automatically mean that the national agricultural sector fully benefits from this demand.

The challenge lies in consistency, volume, quality, standardization, logistics, and delivery capacity. Large tourism establishments need suppliers capable of guaranteeing consistent quantities, precise health standards, reliable delivery schedules, and uniform quality. A fragmented agricultural sector that remains insufficiently mechanized or poorly connected to logistics infrastructure cannot always meet these requirements. The result is predictable: hotels import certain products even when some of those products could theoretically be produced locally.

The answer is not simply to ask hotels to purchase more Jamaican products. It is to build an agricultural infrastructure adapted to tourism demand. Specialized cooperatives could bring producers together, standardize products, manage packaging, and negotiate directly with large establishments. Regional logistics centers could facilitate storage and distribution. Multi year contracts between producers and hotel groups could reduce uncertainty. Financial institutions could develop credit mechanisms adapted to agricultural cycles. Universities and research centers could contribute to improving yields, preservation, and food processing.

Such an architecture would have a major consequence: it would simultaneously reduce food imports and increase rural value added. Tourism would thus become a structural market for agriculture, while agriculture would strengthen tourism’s resilience to international disruptions.

AGRO FOOD PROCESSING: THE NEXT LEVEL

Productive sovereignty cannot, however, stop at agricultural production. Much of the real value is often found in processing. A mango sold as a raw commodity does not generate the same value as a premium juice, jam, sauce, dried product, or ingredient destined for the food industry. The same principle applies to coffee, cocoa, spices, tropical fruits, seafood, and many other local products.

Jamaica could therefore develop an agro food processing policy directly connected to tourism. Hotels could become anchor customers for local processing companies. Restaurants could develop product lines under Jamaican brands. Airports could serve as commercial showcases for food products aimed at visitors. Tourism distribution networks could allow producers to reach the domestic market and export markets simultaneously.

Such a policy would create a second economy around tourism. The first would consist of the services directly consumed by visitors. The second would consist of all the companies producing the goods and services required for that consumption. It is this second economy that can create lasting productive depth.

LOCAL INDUSTRY AND THE IMPORT QUESTION

The same reasoning must be applied to manufacturing. Tourism infrastructure requires a considerable volume of physical goods: furniture, bedding, kitchen equipment, construction materials, cleaning products, uniforms, signage, decorative objects, electrical equipment, security systems, water treatment solutions, energy equipment, and numerous other categories of products.

Jamaica obviously cannot produce everything its tourism industry requires. A productive sovereignty strategy does not mean autarky. Rather, it means identifying the categories in which local production is economically viable and concentrating investment on those segments.

This distinction is essential. An intelligent policy would not seek to replace every import, but to progressively reduce imports in sectors where Jamaica has a potential advantage. Design intensive products, furniture, certain textiles, decorative objects, processed food products, specialized equipment for small tourism infrastructure projects, and selected technical services could constitute priority areas.

The tourism market could therefore become an anchor market for Jamaican industry. A company that acquires sufficient experience and volume through domestic hotels could subsequently export to the Bahamas, Barbados, the Dominican Republic, the United States, or other markets. Tourism would then become a first step toward industrialization rather than an end in itself.

SMEs AT THE CENTER OF THE NEW ARCHITECTURE

The role of small and medium sized enterprises is decisive. A tourism economy can perform strongly while remaining highly concentrated among a few large groups. Yet economic depth depends substantially on the ability of smaller businesses to enter supply chains.

Jamaica’s policy should therefore create mechanisms enabling SMEs to meet the requirements of major hotels and tourism operators. This includes access to finance, certification, training, digitalization, insurance, logistics, and commercial support. The objective would not be to artificially protect local companies from competition, but to enable them to reach the level of competitiveness required to participate in that competition.

This approach could also encourage the emergence of regional clusters. Montego Bay and western Jamaica could develop specialized networks around hospitality, food services, and creative industries. Kingston could strengthen its role in digital services, finance, culture, education, and media industries. Rural regions could develop agro food supply chains serving tourism markets. Other territories could specialize in ecotourism, heritage, sports, or maritime services.

Territorial diversification would also reduce excessive concentration of tourism activity and improve the geographic distribution of revenues.

CULTURE AS AN INDUSTRY, NOT MERELY A NATIONAL IMAGE

The Jamaican case is particularly revealing in the cultural sphere. Few small states possess a cultural identity as immediately recognizable worldwide. Jamaican music, reggae, dancehall, athletics, gastronomy, fashion, linguistic expressions, popular traditions, and historical figures constitute considerable symbolic capital.

But symbolic capital does not automatically become economic capital. A global reputation can benefit platforms, producers, distributors, and companies located outside the country if Jamaican creators lack sufficient capacity for production, financing, intellectual property ownership, and distribution.

The next stage must therefore be one of cultural industrialization. Jamaica could further develop studios, audiovisual production companies, digital platforms, rights management services, specialized training, financing structures, and infrastructure dedicated to international events. Cultural tourism could then be directly connected to this industry.

A visitor attracted by Jamaican music should not merely consume a tourism experience. That visitor should be able to access a national cultural ecosystem encompassing concerts, museums, studios, festivals, gastronomy, merchandise, training, archives, and digital experiences. Each element would reinforce the others.

Culture would thus become an export industry rather than simply a tourism marketing instrument.

THE DIASPORA AS ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE

The diaspora represents another essential dimension of this architecture. Jamaican communities abroad constitute an economic, professional, cultural, and financial network that extends far beyond the traditional function of sending remittances. A modern national strategy should consider the diaspora as international infrastructure.

The diaspora can contribute to investment, exports, skills transfer, research, innovation, education, and the creation of commercial networks. Jamaican professionals working in finance, technology, medicine, academia, culture, or entrepreneurship can become intermediaries between the domestic economy and international markets.

Tourism offers a particularly effective entry point. Members of the diaspora can act as investors, entrepreneurs, cultural ambassadors, and network builders. The country could develop mechanisms allowing emotional ties with Jamaica to be transformed into structured economic participation, without reducing the relationship with the diaspora to a financial transaction.

The diaspora should therefore not be viewed merely as an external source of capital. It should be conceived as an international extension of the Jamaican economy.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, DATA, AND THE NEW TOURISM SOVEREIGNTY

Digital transformation introduces another dimension of sovereignty. Modern tourism generates enormous quantities of data concerning visitors, their consumption patterns, movements, preferences, expenditures, and interactions with services. A significant portion of the value associated with this data is currently captured by major international platforms.

Jamaica must therefore develop its capacity to produce, analyze, and use its own tourism data. This does not mean isolating the country from global platforms. It means possessing sufficient national capacity to understand its market, anticipate developments, improve infrastructure, and develop competitive services.

Universities, technology companies, and public institutions could collaborate to create tourism analytics systems capable of better understanding visitor flows, expenditures, environmental pressures, and infrastructure requirements. Artificial intelligence could contribute to planning, resource management, predictive maintenance, and service personalization, provided that its use rests on strong rules governing data protection and accountability. Digital infrastructure must therefore be regarded as an economic asset in the same way as roads, ports, or airports.

A NEW DEFINITION OF TOURISM VALUE

The next phase of Jamaica’s development ultimately requires a change in the indicators used to measure tourism success. The number of arrivals remains important, but it is insufficient. A country can receive more visitors without proportionally increasing its national wealth if additional spending is absorbed by imports, profit transfers, or foreign suppliers.

A more sophisticated policy should track several dimensions simultaneously: national value added per visitor, the share of tourism purchases made from Jamaican suppliers, skilled jobs created, agricultural revenues linked to tourism, cultural exports, domestic investment, tax revenues, energy consumption, water consumption, environmental pressure, and infrastructure resilience.

The real objective should be to maximize the net value created by each visitor rather than mechanically maximize the number of visitors. This evolution would also better protect the country against external shocks. A tourism economy diversified and integrated with agriculture, industry, culture, digital services, and finance is naturally more resilient than an economy dependent primarily on a few major markets and tourism segments.

RECONSTRUCTION AS A MOMENT OF ECONOMIC REDIRECTION

Reconstruction following natural disasters must be considered within this framework. Rebuilding on a like for like basis may restore existing capacity quickly, but it does not necessarily transform structural vulnerability. Strategic reconstruction should use the investment required to repair infrastructure to simultaneously improve its efficiency, resilience, and economic integration.

New tourism establishments can be designed with greater local energy generation, water recovery, regional materials, digital solutions, and domestic supply chains. Agricultural infrastructure can be modernized alongside tourism infrastructure. Roads and logistics systems can be designed to serve both visitors and producers. Public and private investments can be coordinated so that each sector does not rebuild its infrastructure in isolation. Reconstruction can thus become a moment of industrialization.

This conception is particularly important for a small state facing financial constraints. Every dollar invested in infrastructure should, whenever possible, serve several economic functions. A tourism road can also be an agricultural road. A logistics center can serve hotels and exporters. An energy facility can supply local communities and tourism establishments. A digital platform can serve visitors, businesses, and government. True economic efficiency lies in this ability to multiply the uses of a single investment.

TOWARD AN INDUSTRIAL POLICY FOR JAMAICAN TOURISM

Jamaica could therefore consider a genuine industrial policy for tourism organized around several structural priorities: agriculture and agro food processing, cultural industries, light manufacturing, digital services, logistics, the maritime economy, specialized construction, energy, water management, vocational training, and research.

Such a policy should not be dirigiste in the traditional sense. The state does not need to choose every winning company. Rather, it should build the conditions that allow Jamaican companies to participate in the markets generated by tourism. It can act through infrastructure, financing, training, standards, taxation, access to information, and public procurement.

Major tourism groups, for their part, could be integrated into this strategy through mechanisms encouraging local purchasing, vocational training, supplier development, and community investment. The objective would not be to create an artificial opposition between international capital and national businesses. International investment may be indispensable to tourism growth. The objective is instead to maximize the economic effects of its presence. The central question then becomes straightforward: how can Jamaica ensure that one dollar spent by a visitor circulates several times through the Jamaican economy before leaving the country? That circulation constitutes economic depth.

Jamaica already possesses one of the most difficult assets to create in the contemporary economy: a globally recognized national brand. It also possesses a mature tourism industry, a substantial diaspora, an exportable culture, and a favorable geographic position. Yet these advantages will reach their full potential only when they are connected to a national productive architecture. The strategic transformation therefore consists of moving from tourism that primarily generates revenues to tourism that generates capabilities. Agriculture, agro food processing, local industry, culture, digital technology, education, finance, logistics, and infrastructure must progressively be integrated into a single economic system. Tourism would then no longer be merely one sector among others, but a platform through which multiple sectors can develop simultaneously.

Jamaican productive sovereignty does not mean closing the country to the world. It means increasing the value derived from openness to the world. It does not mean reducing foreign investment. It means creating the conditions under which such investment also strengthens national capabilities. It does not mean abandoning mass tourism when it remains economically relevant. It means diversifying tourism models and increasing the value created by each visitor.

By 2035, the fundamental question will therefore no longer be simply how many visitors Jamaica can accommodate. It will be how many Jamaican companies can earn from their presence, how many producers can enter value chains, how many young people can access skilled employment, how many Jamaican products can be exported because of this demand, and how much economic value can remain within the country. It is at this level that tourism ceases to be merely a service industry and becomes an instrument of economic sovereignty.

JAMAICA AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF HUMAN CAPITAL: YOUTH, SKILLS, EDUCATION, AND PRODUCTIVITY IN THE 2035 ECONOMY

The question of human capital is probably the point at which all the economic transformations Jamaica will face over the next decade converge. No sector, however successful, can produce lasting national transformation without a population capable of occupying new jobs, creating businesses, mastering technologies, developing high value added services, and continuously adapting its skills to changes in the global economy. Jamaica’s real challenge therefore lies not simply in the number of people receiving education, but in the alignment between available skills and the future needs of the economy. A more sophisticated tourism economy, a more globally integrated cultural industry, a modernized agricultural sector, an expanding digital economy, and increasingly complex infrastructure will all require a workforce different from that associated with the traditional economic model.

This transformation must begin with a reassessment of the very concept of education. In a relatively open economy, located close to major North American markets and supported by a substantial diaspora, Jamaica can no longer view education solely as a mechanism for preparing people for domestic employment. It must also be conceived as an infrastructure for exporting skills. A young Jamaican trained in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, engineering, finance, audiovisual production, medicine, tourism management, or digital services can work for a company based in Kingston, but also for a company located in Toronto, Miami, London, New York, or elsewhere in the world. The distinction between domestic and international employment is therefore becoming progressively less relevant. The strategic question is increasingly whether Jamaica can produce skills competitive enough to participate in the global economy while retaining a substantial share of that value within the country.

Tourism offers a first illustration of this transformation. The sector’s upgrading requires increasing expertise in management, technology, gastronomy, specialized maintenance, environmental management, data analytics, international marketing, and customer experience. If these skills have to be imported, part of the economic value generated by tourism expansion will mechanically flow outward. Conversely, if Jamaica can train a generation of professionals capable of managing establishments, developing digital systems, designing tourism experiences, and administering complex infrastructure, the sector can become a national laboratory for exportable skills. This logic therefore extends far beyond tourism. It concerns Jamaica’s entire economic trajectory.

YOUTH AS A STRATEGIC VARIABLE IN NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION

Jamaican youth must be regarded as future productive capacity rather than simply as a social category requiring assistance. This distinction is fundamental. A young population equipped with appropriate education, access to finance, an entrepreneurial environment, and professional opportunities can become an accelerator of growth. A generation facing a persistent mismatch between education and employment, by contrast, risks reinforcing migration, dependence on remittances, and the loss of human capital.

Jamaica has an important advantage in this respect: its cultural and linguistic identity allows it to operate within a particularly broad international economic environment. English is a major strategic asset in digital, financial, tourism, academic, and technological sectors. This advantage should be more fully integrated into education policy. Mastery of English, however, cannot be sufficient. It must be combined with technical, quantitative, digital, and entrepreneurial skills.

Priority should therefore be given to fields in which international demand is likely to grow significantly over the next decade. Artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, software development, engineering, financial technology, data management, renewable energy, resilient architecture, logistics, biotechnology, audiovisual production, digital animation, medical services, and environmental management are among the areas in which Jamaica could seek to develop exportable capabilities.

The objective would not be to turn every young person into a technology specialist. A diversified economy needs artisans, technicians, modern farmers, healthcare professionals, teachers, engineers, managers, creators, and entrepreneurs. The real reform is to recognize that all these professions contribute to national competitiveness when they are sufficiently qualified and properly integrated into value chains.

TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AS ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Technical and vocational education deserves particular attention because it is one of the most direct ways to bring education closer to production. In a transforming economy, companies may lack technicians capable of installing, maintaining, repairing, or modernizing the equipment required for their activities, even while the education system produces graduates whose skills do not always correspond to immediate market needs.

The solution is not to oppose university education and vocational training. The two systems must complement one another. Universities produce research, advanced expertise, and a significant share of highly qualified professionals. Technical education produces the operational skills essential to the functioning of infrastructure and businesses. A modern economy needs both.

Jamaica could therefore strengthen links between educational institutions and companies. Hotels, farms, technology companies, energy firms, production studios, ports, airports, and industrial companies could participate more directly in designing training programs. Students could acquire professional experience before fully entering the labor market. Certifications could be designed according to internationally recognized standards so that skills acquired in Jamaica can also be valued abroad. This approach would serve a dual purpose: reducing the mismatch between education and employment while simultaneously increasing the export capacity of Jamaican human capital.

THE DIASPORA AND SKILLS TRANSFER

The diaspora must also be incorporated into this educational architecture. Its potential extends far beyond financial transfers. Jamaican professionals living abroad can contribute to training, mentoring, research, entrepreneurship, and the creation of international networks. Digital technologies now make it possible to mobilize this expertise much more systematically. Jamaican academics working abroad can participate in national university programs. Engineers can contribute remotely to industrial projects. Entrepreneurs can mentor start ups. Finance professionals can help train local executives. Creators can develop collaborations with domestic cultural industries.

The diaspora then becomes a transnational human capital network. This is far more ambitious than simply encouraging remittances. It would allow Jamaica to benefit simultaneously from resources within the country and expertise accumulated abroad. Migration would therefore cease to be viewed solely as a potential loss of human capital and become, as well, a mechanism for human capital circulation.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS AN INSTRUMENT OF ECONOMIC MOBILITY

Human capital development must also be connected to business creation. Educating a population without enabling it to access finance and markets means creating economic capacity that cannot always be fully utilized. Jamaica already possesses a significant entrepreneurial environment, but access to finance remains a central challenge for small businesses. Young entrepreneurs generally face several obstacles simultaneously: insufficient initial capital, high borrowing costs, lack of collateral, difficulty accessing international markets, limited professional networks, and weak administrative capacity.

A national strategy could seek to create financing mechanisms better adapted to different stages of business development. Financing a local microenterprise does not involve the same needs as financing a technology company capable of exporting its services. Public policy should therefore distinguish between different levels of risk and maturity.

Tourism could once again serve as an anchor market. A young company developing a solution for Jamaican hotels can subsequently sell that solution in other tourism markets. An agricultural company capable of supplying local establishments can later export its products. A cultural company producing content for the Jamaican market can progressively access international platforms. The domestic market thus becomes a laboratory for international competitiveness.

THE UNIVERSITY AS AN ACTOR OF NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS

Universities must also evolve. In a knowledge economy, they cannot operate separately from industrial transformation. They must produce research, but they must also contribute to solving the country’s economic challenges. Jamaica possesses several areas in which greater applied research could generate direct effects: climate adaptation, tropical agriculture, marine resource management, sustainable tourism, renewable energy, public health, urban planning, digital technologies, the creative economy, and disaster management.

Developing a national innovation system requires universities, businesses, and government to collaborate on common programs. The objective is not to turn universities into companies. It is to create pathways through which research becomes innovation and innovation becomes economic activity. Such an architecture would be particularly important for a country that does not possess the financial and natural resources of major powers. Jamaica’s comparative advantage must increasingly derive from the quality of its institutions, the capabilities of its people, and its ability to transform knowledge rapidly into solutions.

HUMAN CAPITAL AND CLIMATE RESILIENCE

Climate change makes this requirement even more urgent. Disaster reconstruction and infrastructure adaptation require a workforce capable of designing resilient buildings, managing electricity networks, restoring ecosystems, planning cities, protecting water resources, and using climate data. Resilience must therefore not be reduced to physical infrastructure. It is also a national capability. A country may possess considerable reconstruction financing, but if it systematically depends on external experts to design, manage, and maintain its infrastructure, it remains vulnerable.

Training engineers, architects, technicians, and risk management specialists should therefore be regarded as a strategic investment. Jamaica could gradually become a regional center of expertise in island resilience, using its own experience to develop capabilities that could be exported to other Caribbean states. Disaster then becomes a source of knowledge. Experience acquired through reconstruction can be transformed into regional expertise and eventually into an exportable service.

TOWARD A JAMAICAN ECONOMY OF SKILLS

By 2035, the real competition among Caribbean economies will not be determined solely by infrastructure or visitor numbers. It will also depend on their ability to maintain a workforce sufficiently skilled to operate that infrastructure and serve those visitors. Jamaica possesses a distinctive opportunity. Its cultural influence, linguistic integration into the English speaking world, diaspora, and regional position give it the potential to develop an economy increasingly based on skills. The country could become not only a tourism destination, but also a destination for education, professional services, cultural production, and solutions adapted to island economies.

This transformation would progressively alter the structure of growth. Jamaica would no longer depend solely on selling tourism experiences. It could also export skills, services, content, technologies, and solutions. Jamaican economic sovereignty would then increasingly rest on a simple but decisive principle: produce more intellectual value within the national territory.

JAMAICA AND THE NEW DIGITAL ECONOMY: TECHNOLOGY, DATA, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND SOVEREIGNTY IN THE CARIBBEAN

Digital transformation has become one of the principal forces capable of reshaping Jamaica’s position in the Caribbean economy. For an island state whose territory naturally imposes certain physical constraints, digital technology offers an exceptional strategic opportunity: to produce and export value without that value necessarily being proportional to the physical size of the territory. A software developer, data analyst, cybersecurity specialist, audiovisual producer, or digital financial services company can access international markets without physically moving goods across the sea. This characteristic gives digital technology particular importance in Jamaica’s economic strategy.

This opportunity, however, should not be interpreted as an automatic promise of modernization. Digital transformation can also deepen dependency. Cloud infrastructure, global platforms, payment systems, social networks, artificial intelligence tools, and certain critical technologies are largely controlled by companies located outside the region. An economy can therefore be highly digitalized while remaining technologically dependent.

The Jamaican question thus becomes one of digital sovereignty. This does not mean producing every technology required on national territory. Such an ambition would be economically unrealistic. It means possessing sufficient levels of skills, infrastructure, data, regulation, and entrepreneurial capacity to avoid becoming merely a consumer of technologies designed elsewhere. Jamaica should therefore regard digital technology as strategic infrastructure comparable to energy, ports, roads, and telecommunications.

GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION DOES NOT DISAPPEAR IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Digital technology reduces certain geographic constraints, but it does not eliminate them. Submarine cables, data centers, electricity networks, telecommunications infrastructure, and international connections remain physical. Geography therefore continues to determine a significant part of a country’s digital capacity. For Jamaica, this reality creates an opportunity. Its position in the Caribbean can be leveraged to strengthen its role as a regional connectivity platform. Digital infrastructure could be developed alongside port, airport, and tourism infrastructure to create an integrated regional ecosystem.

Digital connectivity must also be regarded as a condition of business competitiveness. A hotel can no longer operate efficiently without digital systems. A modern agricultural operation increasingly depends on weather data, logistics, and payment systems. A cultural enterprise depends on digital platforms to distribute its content. Public institutions require reliable systems to deliver services. The digital divide therefore becomes an economic divide. A poorly connected territory does not merely suffer from a technological problem. It loses part of its capacity to participate in the contemporary economy.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE RISK OF A NEW DEPENDENCY

Artificial intelligence introduces an additional layer of transformation. Economies that succeed in mastering the infrastructure, models, data and skills associated with artificial intelligence will likely gain a considerable advantage across numerous sectors. For Jamaica, the most realistic strategy is not to attempt to compete directly with major powers investing billions of dollars in foundational models. Instead, the country can develop specialized capabilities in using artificial intelligence to address problems specific to island economies.

Agriculture, climate forecasting, tourism management, transportation, healthcare, education, public administration, disaster prevention and energy management are all areas in which solutions adapted to the Jamaican context could be developed. The creation of such solutions could also generate regional value. The challenges facing Jamaica are often similar to those encountered by other Caribbean states. A solution developed in Kingston to improve water resource management or anticipate tourism demand could subsequently be adapted to other islands. Artificial intelligence can therefore become an export sector for Caribbean solutions.

DATA AS A NEW NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

The question of data is becoming equally fundamental. Data constitute the raw material for many modern applications, but their value depends on the capacity to collect them properly, secure them and analyze them. Jamaica already generates data in tourism, finance, transportation, healthcare, agriculture, education and public services. Yet these data can remain fragmented among different institutions and companies. Such fragmentation reduces their potential.

A national data policy should seek to improve the interoperability of systems while protecting individual rights. Public administrations must be able to exchange certain information necessary for the delivery of public services without creating a disproportionate surveillance system. Businesses must be able to use the data necessary for innovation while complying with clear rules on privacy and security.

Trust will become an economic advantage. A digital economy in which citizens and businesses do not trust institutions will struggle to develop sophisticated services. Data governance must therefore be regarded as an institutional issue as much as a technological one.

CYBERSECURITY AND ECONOMIC SECURITY

Digitalization also increases vulnerability to cyberattacks. Tourism, financial, energy, port and government infrastructure are all becoming increasingly dependent on computer systems. A major digital disruption can therefore produce real economic consequences. Cybersecurity must consequently be integrated into national economic security policy. This requires training specialists, protecting critical infrastructure, preparing for incidents and strengthening international cooperation.

Jamaica could also seek to develop a national cybersecurity industry. Demand already exists across the Caribbean and beyond. Local companies could initially serve the domestic market before offering their services to other states and businesses in the region. Such an industry would have a dual value: it would protect the Jamaican economy while creating a new category of exportable services.

DIGITAL FINANCE AND ECONOMIC INCLUSION

The financial sector represents another major area of transformation. Digital technologies can reduce transaction costs, facilitate access to financial services and improve the integration of small businesses into the formal economy. For microenterprises, farmers, artisans and self employed workers, access to modern payment systems can represent a significant transformation. The digitalization of transactions can also improve economic traceability and facilitate access to credit when businesses possess a reliable financial history.

But the digital transformation of finance must be accompanied by rigorous consumer protection. Financial inclusion can only be sustainable if citizens understand the tools they use and if their data are protected. The development of digital financial services could also strengthen the relationship with the diaspora. More efficient systems for transfers, investment and financing could facilitate the transformation of international financial flows into productive investment.

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES IN THE PLATFORM ERA

Jamaica possesses a cultural advantage that takes on a new dimension through digital platforms. Music, audiovisual production, design, gaming, animation and digital creation can now reach global audiences with much lower barriers to entry than in the past. Yet this democratization of distribution does not guarantee that value will be captured locally. Platforms often exercise considerable power over visibility, distribution and content monetization. Jamaica must therefore strengthen the capacity of its creators to control their rights, catalogues and commercial relationships.

Intellectual property becomes an instrument of economic sovereignty in this context. Rights over musical, audiovisual, photographic, graphic and digital works represent assets capable of generating income for decades. A modern cultural policy must therefore incorporate legal training, rights management, creative financing and access to international markets. Jamaican cultural heritage could thus become a genuine intellectual property economy.

THE DIGITAL ECONOMY AS A NEW FRONTIER OF TOURISM

Digital technology can also profoundly transform tourism. Visitors already use digital tools to search for destinations, compare accommodation, organize travel, book activities, share their experiences and maintain their relationship with a destination after returning home. Jamaica can seek to exercise greater control over this relationship. A destination that depends exclusively on external platforms to reach visitors has less control over the commercial relationship. A national digital strategy could encourage the creation of ecosystems allowing Jamaican businesses to become more visible, connected and capable of selling their services directly.

Tourism data can also improve infrastructure planning. Understanding visitor movements makes it possible to organize transportation, water resources, waste management, security and carrying capacity more effectively. Digital tourism thus becomes an instrument of territorial governance.

JAMAICA AS A CARIBBEAN DIGITAL LABORATORY

Taken together, these elements make it possible to envision a broader ambition: turning Jamaica into a regional laboratory for digital solutions adapted to small states. Most Caribbean economies share comparable constraints: limited domestic markets, climate exposure, dependence on imports, high logistical costs, strong reliance on tourism, geographic dispersion and the need to maintain effective public services despite limited resources.

These constraints can become an advantage if they encourage the development of solutions specifically designed for small economies. Energy management systems, agricultural technologies, environmental monitoring tools, tourism platforms, educational solutions and administrative applications could be developed in Jamaica and subsequently adapted to other markets.

Jamaica would not necessarily become a global technological power. It could become something more realistic and potentially more useful: a regional power in solutions.

The digital revolution represents a historic opportunity for Jamaica to overcome some of the constraints associated with its island geography. It makes it possible to export skills, services, content and technologies without relying exclusively on the export of physical goods. Yet this opportunity also carries a major risk: replacing traditional economic dependency with a new form of technological dependency.

The national strategy must therefore seek a balance between openness and domestic capacity. Jamaica should continue using international platforms, infrastructure and technologies while developing its national skills, data, businesses, critical infrastructure and regulatory capacity. The objective is not digital self sufficiency. It is the ability to negotiate, innovate, produce and protect Jamaican interests in a technological environment dominated by far more powerful actors.

By 2035, Jamaican power could therefore rest on a new combination: a globally recognized culture, a more integrated tourism economy, competitive human capital, a connected diaspora and sufficient digital capacity to transform island constraints into export opportunities. Jamaica should therefore not merely become more digital. It should become more capable through digitalization.

JAMAICAN SOCIETY, HUMAN CAPITAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSFORMATION

The analysis of Jamaica cannot be reduced to its infrastructure, tourism performance or macroeconomic indicators. The country’s true capacity for transformation will depend on the quality of its human capital, the structure of its population, the education of its young people, the economic participation of women, the ability of the education system to respond to technological change and the state’s capacity to maintain a productive relationship with a diaspora whose importance extends far beyond national borders. In an open island economy where natural resources are limited and a significant share of growth depends on international exchanges, human capital represents one of the country’s principal strategic assets. The Jamaican challenge is therefore to transform a relatively small population into an economic, scientific, technological, cultural and institutional capability greater than its territorial size alone would suggest.

This issue is particularly important because Jamaica operates within a regional environment characterized by the mobility of skilled workers. Young Jamaicans have long demonstrated a strong capacity to integrate into international labor markets, particularly in North America, the United Kingdom and other English speaking environments. This mobility represents both an opportunity and a risk. It enables individuals to access higher incomes, supports financial transfers and creates international networks that can benefit the country. Yet it can also lead to a lasting loss of skills when people trained in Jamaica cannot find the economic, professional and scientific conditions necessary for their development at home. The problem, therefore, is not mobility itself. The real challenge is to transform mobility into the circulation of skills rather than simply the departure of skills.

Education is, in this respect, the first instrument of productive sovereignty. An economy that depends on imported expertise to manage its infrastructure, digital systems, technology companies, specialized medical services or industrial activities remains structurally vulnerable, even when it displays satisfactory macroeconomic stability. Jamaica already has an important university and professional tradition, but the challenge of the next decade will be to align education much more directly with the sectors expected to drive economic transformation. Artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, engineering, data management, financial technologies, marine sciences, precision agriculture, renewable energy, logistics, digital health and creative industries should progressively become central components of the national education strategy. This does not mean transforming every field of study into a technology program. It means creating a society in which general skills, the humanities, social sciences, exact sciences and technologies can interact within a single productive system.

The question of youth is particularly strategic. A young population can generate a demographic dividend when it has genuine access to education, healthcare, vocational training, financing and employment. Without these conditions, it can instead become a source of economic frustration and social vulnerability. For Kingston, youth policy must therefore move beyond isolated programs and become part of a national competitiveness strategy. A young Jamaican should not be viewed solely as a future employee. Young people should also be seen as future entrepreneurs, researchers, engineers, creators, modern farmers, financial professionals, diplomats, service exporters and cultural producers. This broader conception of human capital is essential for an economy seeking to increase the value created per capita.

Women’s participation represents another fundamental dimension. The Jamaican economy cannot reach its full potential if a significant portion of its human capital remains underutilized because of limited access to financing, family responsibilities, professional inequalities or excessive concentration of women in certain low productivity sectors. Economic diversification must therefore be accompanied by policies enabling women to gain greater access to technological, scientific, industrial, financial and entrepreneurial sectors. The issue is not merely social. It is directly economic. Every obstacle preventing a qualified person from participating fully in productive activity represents a loss of national capacity.

The diaspora is ultimately one of the most important and complex assets of the Jamaican model. Jamaica has a substantial expatriate community deeply integrated into the economies of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Financial transfers constitute an important component of the national economy, but their role could be expanded. A modern diaspora strategy should not be limited to monetary transfers intended for household consumption. It should seek to mobilize savings, investment, skills, commercial networks, technological knowledge, academic capabilities and professional relationships within the diaspora. The central question then becomes how to create a genuine transnational Jamaican market in which a professional living in Toronto, London, New York or Miami can contribute to a company, university, infrastructure project or innovation in Jamaica without necessarily having to return permanently to the country.

This logic would lead to a new conception of economic citizenship. The diaspora would no longer be viewed simply as an external population supporting Jamaica from abroad. It would become an international extension of Jamaican productive capacity. Diaspora networks could contribute to the export of professional services, the marketing of Jamaican products, tourism promotion, the development of creative industries and the attraction of investment. From this perspective, migration ceases to be merely a demographic issue. It becomes an instrument of external economic policy.

Human capital transformation also requires a profound reform of the relationship between education and the labor market. The education system must be capable of anticipating future needs rather than merely responding to inherited economic structures. Jamaica should particularly strengthen links among universities, businesses, public administrations and research centers. Students should have greater opportunities to participate in real world projects, businesses should contribute to defining the skills they require and universities should have mechanisms that encourage the commercialization of innovation. A small economy cannot afford an excessive separation between knowledge production and value creation.

The challenge is particularly important in the creative industries. Music, film, audiovisual production, design, fashion, gastronomy, sport and digital content are sectors in which Jamaica already possesses international recognition. Yet the global reputation of a culture does not automatically mean that most of the economic value generated by that culture remains in its country of origin. A national strategy should therefore strengthen the legal, financial, technological and commercial skills required to protect and monetize intellectual property. Cultural talent must be capable of being converted into businesses, exports, skilled employment and tax revenue.

Sport deserves similar attention. Jamaica possesses an exceptional international reputation in athletics, particularly in sprint disciplines. This reputation represents a significant diplomatic and economic asset. It could support the development of training centers, sports medicine, biomechanical research, international events, sports tourism and specialized services. Once again, the strategic principle is the same: transform international recognition into a domestic value chain.

Jamaican society therefore possesses human capital that extends far beyond conventional employment statistics. Its true wealth lies in the skills present both within the country and throughout the diaspora, the international networks built over generations and the cultural capacity to produce an identity immediately recognizable around the world. The challenge for the period from 2026 to 2035 will be to connect these resources so that they can generate greater value within the national territory. Jamaica cannot radically alter its geography. It can, however, transform the productivity of its human capital.

DIGITAL JAMAICA: DATA, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, CYBERSECURITY AND NEW TECHNOLOGICAL SOVEREIGNTY

Jamaica’s next transformation will not be physical alone. It will also be digital. This shift is particularly important for a small island state because digital technologies make it possible to reduce some of the constraints associated with distance, the size of the domestic market and geographic isolation. A Jamaican company can now sell services to Toronto, London, New York, São Paulo or Accra without physically moving its workers. A developer can work for a foreign company from Kingston. A creator can distribute content worldwide. A university can collaborate with foreign institutions in real time. An administration can progressively digitize its services. Geography therefore remains a constraint, but it is no longer an economic destiny to the same extent as before.

This transformation nevertheless creates a new question of sovereignty. Digital dependency can gradually replace physical dependency when a country relies on infrastructure, platforms, payment systems, storage services and technologies controlled almost exclusively by foreign companies. Jamaica must therefore seek a balance between international openness and national capacity. It would neither be realistic nor economically desirable to pursue absolute technological autonomy. It is, however, strategically important to possess the skills, infrastructure, standards and institutions necessary to ensure that the country’s essential data, critical public services and certain digital infrastructures do not become entirely dependent on decisions made elsewhere.

Data constitute a strategic resource in this new economy, comparable in certain sectors to physical infrastructure. Tourism systems generate data on visitors, their behavior, spending and movements. Public administrations generate demographic, fiscal and economic data. Hospitals generate medical data. Banks produce financial information. Energy and transportation networks generate continuous streams of data. Jamaica’s challenge is not to accumulate all this information indiscriminately, but to build a governance framework capable of determining which data may be used, under what conditions, by whom and for what purposes. Digital trust thus becomes a component of economic competitiveness.

Artificial intelligence intensifies this transformation. For a country like Jamaica, it should not be viewed merely as an imported technology designed to automate certain administrative tasks. It can become an instrument of national productivity. In tourism, artificial intelligence can improve demand forecasting, flow management, service personalization and energy optimization. In agriculture, it can support crop monitoring, weather forecasting and resource management. In healthcare, it can assist certain diagnostic and management systems. In education, it can facilitate personalized learning. In transportation, it can improve planning and maintenance. In disaster management, it can contribute to risk analysis and the organization of emergency responses.

But technology does not automatically create sovereignty. An economy can make extensive use of artificial intelligence while remaining dependent on the infrastructure, models, platforms and foreign capital that make it possible. Jamaica’s strategy must therefore distinguish between technology use and technological capacity. The first level consists of adopting available tools. The second consists of developing the capabilities required to understand, adapt, audit and, in certain cases, produce those tools. It is this second level that determines strategic depth.

Education must accompany digital transformation. Jamaica will need to expand its capabilities in programming, data science, cybersecurity, computer engineering, digital infrastructure management and technology governance. It will also need to train lawyers, economists, journalists, educators and public officials capable of understanding the implications of artificial intelligence. A digitized society cannot be governed solely by engineers. It requires a broader digital culture capable of integrating economic, social, legal and ethical dimensions.

Cybersecurity is simultaneously becoming a matter of national security. The more essential services become digitalized, the more critical infrastructure will be exposed to digital disruption. Banking, energy, healthcare, administrative, port and airport systems must therefore be protected through appropriate security architectures. Cybersecurity can no longer be treated simply as an internal IT matter for individual companies. It must be integrated into the national resilience doctrine.

This evolution is particularly important in the Caribbean context. Small states often have limited human and financial resources for developing advanced technological capabilities on their own. Regional cooperation therefore becomes rational. Jamaica could play a major role in building a shared Caribbean capacity in cybersecurity, digital training, critical infrastructure protection, data governance and artificial intelligence skills. The logic would be comparable to that of small economies that pool certain infrastructure to benefit from economies of scale.

The financial sector also represents a major field for innovation. Digital payments, remote financial services and new technologies can help reduce some constraints associated with geography and informality. But financial innovation must remain accompanied by strong regulation in order to protect consumers and preserve system stability. The objective should not simply be to become a user market for foreign financial technologies. It should be to progressively develop companies and skills capable of exporting solutions adapted to the realities of small states, particularly in tourism, diaspora transfers, climate insurance and small business financing.

Digital technology can also transform the relationship between Jamaica and its diaspora. Digital platforms can enable Jamaican professionals living abroad to participate in national projects, invest in local businesses, transfer expertise and collaborate with universities without having to settle permanently on the island. A digital diaspora strategy could therefore become one of the most important components of the country’s external economic policy.

This dimension is particularly relevant to the cultural industries. Jamaica already possesses a substantial global digital identity through its music, sport and international image. The next step is to convert that visibility into economic ownership. Jamaican artists, producers and companies must be better able to control digital distribution, intellectual property, copyright, audience data and the revenues associated with international platforms. The challenge is fundamental: cultural visibility in the world is not enough if most of the economic value generated by that visibility is captured elsewhere.

Digital technology can ultimately contribute to a profound transformation of the state. The digitalization of administrative procedures, the interconnection of public databases, improved tax systems, simplified procedures for businesses and the development of remotely accessible public services can reduce administrative costs and improve the quality of the relationship between citizens and institutions. Yet this transformation must be accompanied by strong safeguards concerning data protection, transparency, security and democratic oversight. Digital modernization should not become a simple accumulation of technologies. It must improve the state’s capacity to serve the population.

Jamaica therefore has the possibility of building a form of sovereignty adapted to the twenty first century. This sovereignty would not be based on technological autarky, which would be unrealistic for a small open economy. It would be based on the capacity to choose technologies, understand dependencies, protect critical infrastructure, train citizens, derive value from data and develop sufficient domestic expertise to avoid remaining entirely passive in the face of global technological transformation.

By 2035, the real divide among Caribbean economies will therefore not lie solely between those possessing more natural resources and those possessing fewer. It will also lie between those capable of transforming their data, talent and digital infrastructure into national productivity and those that remain primarily consumers of technologies designed elsewhere. Jamaica possesses a sufficiently strong cultural, educational, diasporic and institutional foundation to pursue the first trajectory. Success will nevertheless depend on the coherence of the national strategy, the continuity of investment and the ability to make digitalization a cross cutting instrument of development rather than an isolated sector.

JAMAICA AND THE NEW INFRASTRUCTURE ARCHITECTURE: PORTS, AIRPORTS, ENERGY, WATER, LOGISTICS AND RESILIENCE

Jamaica’s economic transformation will depend decisively on the quality of its infrastructure. In an open island economy, infrastructure is not merely a material support for economic activity; it directly determines the country’s ability to trade, receive visitors, attract investment, move goods, generate energy, guarantee access to water and absorb climate shocks. Infrastructure must therefore be understood as a matter of national competitiveness and economic sovereignty. A more efficient port reduces trade costs. A better connected airport expands the tourism market. A more reliable electricity network improves industrial productivity. More resilient water infrastructure reduces health and agricultural risks. Better maintained roads lower logistics costs and bring territories closer together. Jamaica cannot therefore contemplate its next phase of development without treating infrastructure as an integrated architecture.

This requirement is reinforced by the country’s geography. Insularity naturally creates additional costs related to transportation, equipment imports, energy supply and connections with international markets. But it can also become an advantage when infrastructure is sufficiently efficient to transform geographic position into a platform. Jamaica lies close to the major North American markets, at a relatively short distance from Central and South America, and at the heart of maritime routes connecting several economic spaces. Kingston can therefore become more than a national capital. It can become a Caribbean logistics hub, provided that port, road, digital and energy infrastructure are conceived as interconnected systems.

The Port of Kingston is, in this respect, a major strategic asset. Its geographic position, transshipment potential and proximity to major maritime routes give Jamaica an opportunity that not all Caribbean islands possess. Yet regional competition is intense. The Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Panama and several other platforms also possess port infrastructure capable of capturing an increasing share of commercial flows. Jamaica must therefore avoid an approach limited to the physical modernization of facilities. The real question is what economic value can be created around the port.

An efficient port infrastructure can support processing, storage, repair, distribution, maritime services, digital logistics and trade finance. It can also contribute to the development of regional value chains. The strategic objective should be to ensure that an increasing share of the goods passing through Jamaica generates value on national territory rather than simply being moved through it. The difference between a transit port and a logistics platform lies precisely in this ability to create activities around flows.

The same logic applies to airport infrastructure. Tourism is one of the main engines of the Jamaican economy, and its competitiveness depends directly on air connectivity. But an airport should not be viewed solely as a tourism gateway. It is also a commercial infrastructure enabling the export of high value products, the movement of professionals, the development of specialized medical services, academic exchanges and Jamaica’s integration into global service chains. Increasing connectivity with Latin America, North America, Europe and potentially Africa should therefore be considered as part of a broader economic strategy.

The energy question is even more fundamental. No industrial, digital or tourism transformation can be sustainable if energy supply remains expensive, vulnerable or insufficiently reliable. Jamaica must therefore continue diversifying its energy mix and gradually increase the share of renewable sources while ensuring grid stability. The objective is not only environmental. It is also economic. More predictable and competitive energy reduces business costs, improves investment attractiveness and enables households to benefit from better service quality.

The energy transition also presents an industrial opportunity. Jamaica could develop expertise in the installation, maintenance, management and financing of renewable energy infrastructure adapted to small island states. The island could thus transform an energy constraint into an exportable capability. Jamaican expertise in grid resilience, storage, smart energy management or renewable integration could be marketed in other Caribbean economies facing similar constraints.

Water must be considered with the same strategic importance. Water infrastructure is often less visible than ports or airports, but it is a fundamental condition for human security, agriculture, tourism and industry. Extreme climate events can simultaneously disrupt supply, contaminate certain sources and damage infrastructure. A national water policy must therefore integrate watershed protection, network modernization, loss reduction, storage, reuse where appropriate and protection of critical infrastructure.

Climate change is profoundly transforming the very definition of infrastructure. A road built according to past standards may become inadequate as rainfall patterns change. An electricity network may be increasingly exposed to storms. A coastal tourism facility may face erosion. A port infrastructure may experience more frequent disruptions. Resilience must therefore be incorporated from the design stage rather than addressed only after a disaster. This requires adapted construction standards, early warning systems, continuity plans, appropriate insurance and financing mechanisms capable of enabling rapid reconstruction.

Reconstruction following Melissa should therefore be understood as more than a restoration operation. It can become an opportunity to reassess the entire territorial architecture. Rebuilding exactly what existed may restore lost capacity quickly, but rebuilding better can reduce future risks. The distinction is essential. A genuine resilience policy must seek to reduce structural vulnerability rather than reproduce the conditions that made infrastructure fragile in the first place.

Domestic logistics represent another major challenge. Modern port infrastructure loses part of its effectiveness if roads connecting production areas to export platforms remain costly or unpredictable. Likewise, a competitive agricultural sector cannot fully develop if perishable products take too long to reach markets. Jamaica must therefore strengthen connections among agricultural areas, urban centers, ports, airports and storage facilities. The logistics chain must be treated as a single system.

This integration is particularly important for reducing value leakage in tourism. A hotel that imports a large share of its food, furniture, equipment or services can make a substantial contribution to GDP while generating fewer national spillovers than its apparent importance suggests. Improved logistics and storage infrastructure can enable Jamaican producers to supply more goods and services to the tourism sector. Infrastructure thus becomes an instrument of import substitution and local value chain development.

Financing will be decisive. Infrastructure needs generally exceed the budgetary capacity of a small state. Jamaica will therefore have to combine public resources, private investment, development banks, international partnerships and innovative climate finance mechanisms. But the use of private capital must be accompanied by rigorous governance. A poorly structured public private partnership can transfer significant risks to the state while limiting public benefits. Priority should be given to projects whose economic, social and strategic returns are clearly demonstrated.

Jamaican infrastructure must also be conceived as regional assets. A port, digital cable, airport, data center or energy facility can serve the domestic market while supporting regional activities. This dimension is essential for an economy whose domestic market remains limited. Caribbean scale must therefore be incorporated into investment decisions. Infrastructure capable of serving several markets can potentially increase its profitability while strengthening Jamaica’s geopolitical position.

The next decade should therefore lead Kingston to gradually abandon a sectoral vision of infrastructure in favor of a systemic one. Ports, airports, roads, energy, water, telecommunications, housing, storage and digital systems must be viewed as different components of a single productive architecture. The ultimate objective is not to build more. It is to build infrastructure that increases national productivity, reduces vulnerability, facilitates trade and creates exportable capabilities.

Jamaica possesses the elements required to become one of the Caribbean’s most important infrastructure platforms. But this possibility will depend less on the number of projects announced than on their coherence, maintenance, resilience and integration with productive sectors. Infrastructure must no longer be regarded as an expenditure that precedes growth. It must be designed as one of the country’s principal engines of value creation.

JAMAICAN GOVERNANCE UNDER THE PRESSURE OF THE NEW ECONOMY: THE STATE, PUBLIC FINANCES, INVESTMENT AND EXECUTION CAPACITY

Governance ultimately constitutes the point where all the transformations examined in this report converge. An economy may possess exceptional tourism potential, a skilled population, a substantial diaspora, strategic infrastructure and a globally recognized cultural identity, yet still fail to transform these advantages into lasting prosperity if its institutions lack the capacity required to design, finance, implement and evaluate public policies. For Jamaica, the challenge between 2026 and 2035 will therefore be less about establishing another list of priority sectors than about strengthening the state’s capacity to coordinate these sectors within a long term strategy.

Jamaica’s experience over recent decades demonstrates the importance of macroeconomic discipline. The considerable reduction in the public debt burden is one of the most significant changes in the country’s economic trajectory. This improvement has helped create greater fiscal space and strengthen the country’s financial credibility. But fiscal discipline must not be confused with permanent austerity. Sound fiscal policy must allow the state to preserve stability while investing in infrastructure, education, health, climate resilience and productivity. The fundamental challenge is to determine which expenditures constitute immediate consumption and which create future capabilities.

This distinction will be particularly important in the years following climate disasters. Reconstruction spending can absorb a considerable share of public resources. If such spending is treated solely as a cost, it can weaken public finances. If it is designed as an investment in resilience, it can instead reduce future losses and improve competitiveness. Jamaican fiscal policy should therefore progressively incorporate the concept of resilience returns. Infrastructure that costs more to build but is less vulnerable to disasters can be financially rational over its entire life cycle.

Execution capacity becomes, in this context, as important as financing capacity. Many countries have ambitious strategic plans but encounter difficulties when those plans must be translated into concrete projects. Administrative delays, complex procedures, institutional overlaps, coordination failures and maintenance deficiencies can substantially reduce the return on investment. For a small economy, such inefficiencies are particularly costly because available resources are limited.

Jamaica must therefore continue modernizing its public administration by strengthening results based management, public policy evaluation, procurement transparency and institutional capacity to use data. The administration of the future must not merely be more digital. It must be more capable of measuring outcomes. The essential question is not only how much a program cost, but what it produced in terms of employment, productivity, income, resilience, public service quality and reduction of territorial inequalities.

The business environment represents another essential dimension. Investors naturally seek political and macroeconomic stability, but they also require regulatory predictability, administrative efficiency, legal security, adequate infrastructure and high quality human capital. Jamaica has an important institutional reputation in the region, but its economic ambitions should lead it to further reduce transaction costs that can discourage private investment. Business creation, permitting, land access, electricity connections, equipment imports and product exports must be sufficiently predictable to allow entrepreneurs to plan over several years.

The financing of small and medium sized enterprises is equally central. An economy cannot be transformed solely by large companies and international investors. SMEs constitute the fabric through which employment, innovation and local value chains develop. Yet small firms are often more vulnerable to credit costs, administrative requirements and external shocks. A productive development policy must therefore create mechanisms that allow risk to be shared, improve access to finance and help firms meet the standards required for export.

The relationship between foreign investment and national development must also be reconsidered. International investment is indispensable for an open economy of limited scale, but its contribution should be evaluated according to the effects it produces within the national economy. An investment that creates skilled jobs, trains workers, purchases locally, transfers technology and develops Jamaican suppliers has greater strategic value than one that imports most of its inputs and repatriates most of its profits without creating durable capabilities. Investment attraction policy should therefore gradually move from a logic of volume toward a logic of quality.

This approach is particularly relevant to tourism. Large hotel investments can generate substantial employment and revenues, but their national impact increases when local companies participate more deeply in the supply chain. Agriculture, fisheries, handicrafts, transportation, construction, digital services, maintenance, audiovisual production and professional services can all benefit from a tourism industry that is more deeply integrated into the national economy. Public policy should therefore encourage this integration rather than measure success solely by the number of rooms built or visitors received.

Territorial governance represents another essential dimension. Concentrating economic activity in a few hubs may strengthen productivity in the short term while creating lasting imbalances among regions. Jamaica should seek to build several complementary economic centers rather than an excessively centralized model. Rural regions can develop high value agriculture, ecotourism, cultural industries, digital services and selected logistics activities. Cities can become centers of services, innovation, training and production. A coherent territorial policy would thus help reduce pressure on major urban centers while increasing the productive use of regional resources.

Governance must also incorporate economic security. Global supply chains have become more vulnerable to geopolitical crises, natural disasters, energy fluctuations and logistical disruptions. Jamaica must therefore identify critical dependencies capable of causing major disruptions: energy, food, medicines, technology, telecommunications, maritime transportation and certain industrial inputs. The objective is not to produce everything domestically, which would be economically unrealistic, but to maintain alternatives, strategic reserves where necessary and sufficiently diversified suppliers.

Public policy must also better connect the economy with food security. A tourism economy that relies heavily on food imports remains exposed to international fluctuations and allows a significant portion of the value created to leave the country. Developing agricultural supply chains capable of serving more hotels, restaurants and urban markets can simultaneously strengthen agriculture, reduce certain imports, create employment and improve food resilience. This connection between agriculture and tourism is one of the most accessible levers of Jamaica’s productive transformation.

Financial governance must finally incorporate climate related instruments more fully. Natural disasters can rapidly destroy part of the public and private assets accumulated over several years. Parametric insurance, resilience funds, thematic bonds, regional risk sharing mechanisms and concessional financing can reduce this vulnerability. But such instruments will only be effective if they are integrated into a coherent national strategy. Climate finance should not be treated as an exceptional source of capital reserved solely for environmental projects. It should become a component of general economic policy.

Jamaica therefore possesses a fundamental institutional asset: the possibility of building public policies across political cycles. Such continuity is a considerable advantage in a region where small economies are particularly exposed to external shocks. But this capacity must be continuously strengthened. A national strategy toward 2035 must survive political transitions, economic crises and natural disasters. It must rest on institutions sufficiently strong to maintain essential investments regardless of changes in government.

The new Jamaican governance model will therefore have to be simultaneously macroeconomic, productive, territorial, digital and climate oriented. It will have to maintain fiscal discipline while protecting strategic public investment. It will have to attract foreign capital while increasing the participation of local companies. It will have to support tourism while reducing its dependence on imports. It will have to promote innovation while protecting data and critical infrastructure. It will have to mobilize the diaspora without treating it solely as a source of remittances. Finally, it will have to integrate climate resilience into every major investment decision.

The fundamental question is therefore no longer whether Jamaica possesses enough assets to succeed. It unquestionably possesses several. The question is whether its institutional capacity can organize them. A small economy cannot afford strategic dispersion. Every investment should reinforce several objectives simultaneously: productivity, employment, resilience, exports, inclusion and economic sovereignty. This capacity for coordination will determine the real depth of Jamaica’s transformation over the next decade.

Jamaica is thus entering a period in which governance itself becomes strategic infrastructure. Roads, ports, electricity networks and digital infrastructure are indispensable, but their returns will depend on the quality of the institutions that plan, finance, regulate and maintain them. The true Jamaican power of tomorrow will therefore rest not only on the country’s visible assets. It will rest on the state’s ability to transform those assets into coherent systems of value creation.

JAMAICA IN THE NEW CARIBBEAN COMPETITION: FROM COMPETITION AMONG DESTINATIONS TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF REGIONAL POWER

Jamaica can no longer be analyzed solely through its relationship with the United States, its tourism performance or its national economic trajectory. Its true strategic environment is now Caribbean, and that environment is undergoing profound transformation. The Caribbean is no longer merely a space of competing destinations seeking the same visitors, capital and airlines. It is increasingly becoming an arena of competition for infrastructure, value chains, talent, data, investment, financial services, cultural industries and the capacity to influence regional standards. The Jamaican question must therefore be placed within this broader geography: what position can Kingston occupy in a Caribbean where the Dominican Republic possesses greater tourism power, the Bahamas retain an exceptional advantage in North American markets, Barbados is developing particularly visible economic and climate diplomacy, Trinidad and Tobago possesses distinctive energy and industrial depth, Guyana is experiencing spectacular economic transformation driven by energy resources, Cuba retains considerable territorial and human scale despite its economic constraints, Haiti remains a major human market but faces an exceptional institutional and security crisis, and the small island states are themselves seeking to transform vulnerability into bargaining power?

This comparison is essential because Jamaica possesses a particular characteristic: it is neither the Caribbean’s largest economy, nor its most visited tourism destination, nor the territory with the greatest natural resources, nor the country with the greatest financial capacity. Its advantage lies elsewhere. It lies in the combination of an exceptionally powerful global identity, a strategic geographic position, relatively consolidated institutional traditions, a substantial diaspora, a mature tourism industry, recognized diplomatic capacity and a cultural capital whose international reach vastly exceeds the size of the island. The challenge now is to transform this combination of assets into structural power. The question is therefore no longer whether Jamaica matters to the Caribbean. It already does. The question is whether it can become one of the states capable of shaping part of the region’s economic, cultural and strategic future.

THE CARIBBEAN IS NO LONGER A SINGLE MARKET: IT IS BECOMING A SYSTEM OF DIFFERENTIATED POWERS

The first analytical error would be to speak of the Caribbean as a homogeneous entity. The region brings together economies whose productive models, populations, institutional structures, natural resources and external relationships are profoundly different. CARICOM currently comprises fifteen member states and several associate members, across a geography stretching from the Bahamas to Guyana and Suriname, and from Belize to the eastern Caribbean island states. The organization itself emphasizes the particular combination of small economies, external dependence, vulnerability to natural disasters and difficulties associated with the absence of economies of scale. This diversity does not prevent common interests, but it means that each state is attempting to solve the same equation with different resources.

Jamaica lies precisely at the intersection of several Caribbeans. It belongs fully to the English speaking and institutional space of CARICOM, but its cultural influence has long extended beyond that sphere. It maintains close economic relations with the United States and Canada, has historical ties with the United Kingdom, is progressively developing relations with Latin America and is seeking to deepen connections with Africa. Its tourism economy depends heavily on major North American markets, but its cultural potential enables it to reach global audiences. This ability to move between several spaces is probably its most underestimated geopolitical advantage.

Comparison with the region’s other major economies and destinations helps clarify this singularity. In 2024, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organization, the Caribbean received approximately 34.2 million international stayover visitors, 6.1 percent more than in 2023 and 6.9 percent above the 2019 level. The Dominican Republic ranked first with approximately 8.5 million visitors, followed by Jamaica with approximately 2.9 million, Cuba with 2.2 million, the Bahamas with 1.9 million, Aruba with 1.4 million and Puerto Rico with approximately 1 million. Together, these six destinations represented approximately 56 percent of regional tourist arrivals. These figures immediately demonstrate that Jamaica should not seek to become a replica of its Dominican neighbor. The Dominican Republic possesses a territorial, demographic and hotel scale that allows it to play a different game. Jamaica must therefore pursue a position that maximizes the value of its own configuration of advantages.

REGIONAL COMPARATIVE TABLE: TEN STATES TO OBSERVE IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND JAMAICA’S POSITION

Country	Economic and tourism profile	Main strategic asset	Structural vulnerability	Lesson for Jamaica
Jamaica	Tourism, services, cultural industries, diaspora	Global cultural soft power, tourism, geographic position	Climate, tourism dependence, value leakage	Transform global recognition into productive depth
Dominican Republic	Mass tourism, free trade zones, services, agriculture	Territorial scale, tourism infrastructure, domestic market	Environmental pressure, dependence on external markets	Compete through value and differentiation, not volume
Bahamas	High end tourism, financial services	Proximity to the United States, premium tourism, services	High climate exposure and external concentration	Develop more high value segments
Barbados	Tourism, services, finance, international economy	Diplomacy, services, institutional reputation	Small scale, climate vulnerability, external dependence	Convert diplomatic influence into economic advantages
Trinidad and Tobago	Energy, industry, services, tourism	Energy resources, industry, geographic position	Hydrocarbon dependence and energy volatility	Diversify productive capacity beyond tourism
Cuba	Tourism, agriculture, services, state economy	Scale, population, heritage, geographic position	Financial, energy and trade constraints	Size and heritage are insufficient without productive capacity
Haiti	Agriculture, commerce, services, diaspora	Population, diaspora, geographic proximity, cultural potential	Institutional crisis, insecurity, weak infrastructure	Economic sovereignty begins with fundamental state capacities
Guyana	Energy, natural resources, agriculture, services	Oil resources, territory, rapid growth	Resource dependence, climate vulnerability	Use resources to build a diversified economy
Belize	Tourism, agriculture, services, maritime economy	Biodiversity, environment, proximity to Central America	Small scale, climate exposure, external dependence	Turn natural capital into sustainable value
Antigua and Barbuda	Tourism, services, maritime economy	Premium tourism destination, geographic position	High tourism and climate dependence	Develop quality and value per visitor

This table should not be interpreted as a ranking of countries. Such a hierarchy would be intellectually reductive. Rather, it is a strategic matrix designed to identify the different models of power present in the Caribbean space. The comparison shows that every country possesses a dominant asset but also a dominant vulnerability. The Dominican Republic possesses a scale of power that Jamaica cannot reproduce without losing its distinctiveness. The Bahamas possess exceptional proximity to the U.S. market and a high value tourism position. Trinidad and Tobago possesses energy and industrial depth that most island states do not have. Guyana now has an energy resource capable of radically altering its economic trajectory. Barbados possesses diplomatic and institutional capacity disproportionate to its size. Haiti possesses considerable human and geographic potential but faces severely constrained institutional capacity. Belize can leverage its natural capital and position as a bridge between the Caribbean and Central America. Jamaica therefore distinguishes itself less through dominance of a single sector than through its ability to connect multiple forms of power.

This distinction should become central to Jamaican strategy. A regional power is not necessarily the country with the largest GDP, the largest territory or the greatest number of visitors. It may instead be the state capable of connecting multiple networks. Jamaica possesses precisely this possibility: a tourism network, a cultural network, a diplomatic network, a diaspora network, a university network, a sports network, a media network and an economic network. The strategic question is whether these networks can be articulated around a coherent national policy.

CPGNNews STRATEGIC INSIGHT

JAMAICA SHOULD NOT SEEK TO BECOME THE CARIBBEAN’S LARGEST POWER; IT SHOULD BECOME ONE OF ITS MOST CONNECTED.

The regional comparison reveals a truth that is often overlooked: the power of a contemporary small state depends less on its ability to dominate a single sector than on its ability to connect multiple sectors. Jamaica already possesses exceptional connections among culture, tourism, the diaspora and diplomacy. What it still lacks is an economic architecture capable of transforming those connections into domestic value chains. The real Jamaican sovereignty project could therefore be defined as a strategy of productive connectivity. A visitor who comes for reggae should be able to become a source of revenue for the cultural industry; the visitor’s stay should stimulate local agriculture, transportation, digital services, restaurants, artisans and creative enterprises; the data generated by tourism activity should contribute to infrastructure planning and improvement; universities should be able to use tourism as a research laboratory; and Jamaican technology companies should be able to export solutions developed for the island economy. Only then would tourism cease to be a dominant industry and become a cross cutting development infrastructure.

THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: THE CHALLENGE OF SCALE AND THE NEED FOR A DIFFERENT POSITIONING

The comparison with the Dominican Republic is unavoidable. With approximately 8.5 million international visitors in 2024, according to the CTO, the country has a tourism capacity far greater than Jamaica’s in terms of volume. Its territory is larger, its population is much bigger, and its tourism industry benefits from considerable room for expansion. The Dominican Republic can therefore continue pursuing a strategy based on scale, real estate investment, large hotel complexes, airport infrastructure and the progressive diversification of tourism zones.

Jamaica should not enter into a mechanical competition with this model. It would not necessarily benefit from seeking more hotel rooms simply because a neighboring country is building more. Its real opportunity lies in generating greater value per visitor, offering deeper experiences, strengthening its cultural proposition and expanding specialized services. A Jamaican destination that combines tourism, music, gastronomy, heritage, sport, ecology, creative industries and community experiences can offer a proposition fundamentally different from a model based primarily on beach tourism at scale.

This distinction becomes even more important after Melissa. Reconstruction provides Jamaica with an opportunity to reconsider the location, design and function of its tourism infrastructure. A strategy based solely on physical expansion could increase exposure to risk. A strategy based on territorial and economic diversification could, by contrast, strengthen resilience.

The Dominican Republic is therefore both a competitor and a regional laboratory. Its success demonstrates the economic power of large scale tourism. But it also demonstrates that the Caribbean can produce multiple tourism models. Jamaica must defend its own rather than attempt to reproduce that of another state.

THE BAHAMAS: THE VALUE OF PROXIMITY AND THE LESSON OF HIGH VALUE TOURISM

The Bahamas occupy a particularly interesting position in this comparison. Their proximity to Florida, international image and ability to attract high purchasing power visitors give them an advantage that Jamaica does not possess to the same extent. But this strength also creates a particular vulnerability: when a tourism economy depends heavily on an external market, the economic conditions and consumption patterns of that market become national variables.

Jamaica can nevertheless draw an important lesson from the Bahamas. The value of a destination does not depend solely on the number of visitors. It also depends on their profile, length of stay, level of spending, quality of services consumed and the ability of the domestic economy to retain part of that expenditure. Jamaican policy should therefore move toward a more sophisticated understanding of tourism value.

The objective should no longer be simply to fill more aircraft and hotel rooms. It should be to increase the visitor’s net contribution to the national economy. That contribution should be measured through skilled employment, local procurement, tax revenues, investment, cultural and digital exports and the effects on Jamaican businesses.

BARBADOS: WHEN SMALL SIZE BECOMES DIPLOMATIC CAPACITY

Barbados represents another model. Its size naturally limits its domestic market, yet its diplomatic influence has become greater than its material indicators might suggest. Bridgetown’s international activism on debt, climate finance, international financial mechanisms and the interests of small island states demonstrates that a small nation can transform collective vulnerability into diplomatic capital.

Jamaica possesses a similar possibility, although its potential is different. It can combine diplomacy, culture, tourism and resilience. It could become a center for thinking about the tourism economies of island states, bringing together its experience as a global destination, its reconstruction experience following Melissa and its institutional expertise in managing tourism crises.

The comparison with Barbados therefore reveals two complementary models of power. Bridgetown demonstrates how a small nation can increase its negotiating capacity through diplomacy. Kingston can demonstrate how a small nation can increase its negotiating capacity through culture, tourism and resilience. Cooperation between these two approaches could even become a regional instrument.

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO AND GUYANA: THE ENERGY CARIBBEAN CHANGES THE EQUATION

The comparison with Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana introduces a different dimension: energy resources. Trinidad and Tobago has long possessed an industrial and energy base that gives it particular economic depth within the Caribbean. Guyana, meanwhile, is undergoing a historic transformation linked to oil exploitation. This development is gradually reshaping the regional economic balance.

For Jamaica, this situation offers two lessons. The first is that economic power can come from assets very different from tourism. The second is that possessing a strategic resource does not automatically create lasting sovereignty. A resource rich economy must transform exceptional revenues into infrastructure, human capital, institutions, productive diversification and technological capacity.

Jamaica possesses precisely the opposite advantage. It does not have a comparable energy rent, but it possesses exceptional cultural and tourism capital. It must therefore treat that capital as a strategic resource rather than merely as a symbolic inheritance. Reggae, athletics, gastronomy, audiovisual creativity, international reputation and the diaspora can all be considered economic resources, provided that the necessary infrastructure exists to capture their value.

The comparison with Guyana therefore leads to a particularly important conclusion: a resource is strategic only when a state possesses the capacity to transform it.

HAITI: THE MOST IMPORTANT COUNTERPOINT FOR UNDERSTANDING JAMAICAN SOVEREIGNTY

The comparison with Haiti must be approached with particular rigor because both countries belong to the same Caribbean space and share a history marked by slavery, emancipation and migration, while today presenting profoundly different institutional and economic trajectories. Haiti nevertheless remains a major element of the regional equation, particularly because of its population, diaspora, geographic position and human potential.

The Haitian situation reminds Jamaica that no sovereignty strategy can be sustainable without functioning institutions, reliable infrastructure, security, administrative capacity and investment in human capital. Sovereignty is not merely a matter of national discourse. It is also a material capacity. A state can possess an exceptional historical identity and a deeply creative population while remaining unable to transform those assets into sustainable growth when the fundamental conditions required for the state to function are weakened.

For Jamaica, this comparison should not produce a logic of superiority, but rather a strategic reflection on the conditions of resilience. The country possesses one of the most important advantages available to a small state: sufficient institutional continuity to allow public policies to generate effects over several decades. Jamaican fiscal discipline and debt reduction are important institutional assets in this respect. An IMF analysis notes that Jamaican public debt had fallen from approximately 140% of GDP in 2012 to around 62% in 2024 before temporarily increasing as a result of Melissa. This trajectory illustrates the importance of institutional capacity when a country must absorb a major shock.

The regional lesson is therefore clear: sovereignty begins with the state’s capacity to function, but it does not end there. It must subsequently evolve into the capacity to produce, innovate, negotiate and diversify.

CUBA: HISTORICAL DEPTH DOES NOT REPLACE ECONOMIC CAPACITY

Cuba occupies a particular position in the Caribbean geography. Its population, territory, historical heritage, cultural identity and geographic position give it exceptional depth. Yet its potential weight does not automatically translate into equivalent economic capacity. The Cuban comparison reminds us that human, cultural and territorial resources generate sustainable power only when they are connected to effective productive mechanisms, infrastructure, investment and markets.

For Jamaica, the lesson is important. Jamaican cultural power could also remain largely symbolic if it is not accompanied by an economic architecture that allows creators, producers and businesses to capture a greater share of the value generated. The simple fact that a Jamaican song is listened to in dozens of countries does not guarantee that the Jamaican economy benefits proportionally from that distribution. Cultural sovereignty must therefore be connected to intellectual property, production, financing and distribution.

BELIZE AND SMALL STATES: THE VALUE OF NATURAL CAPITAL

Belize represents another relevant model for Jamaica. Its biodiversity, marine environment and position between the Caribbean and Central America provide it with exceptional natural capital. Yet, as throughout the small island states, this capital is exposed to climate change, tourism pressure and economies of scale constraints.

Jamaica can draw a fundamental conclusion from this experience: nature is not merely an element of the tourism landscape. It is economic infrastructure. Reefs, forests, beaches, wetlands, watersheds and rural landscapes contribute directly to the value of the destination. Their destruction therefore represents a depreciation of national capital.

After Melissa, this understanding becomes even more important. Reconstruction must incorporate ecosystem protection into economic calculations. A protected beach, restored mangrove or secured watershed can generate economic value comparable to conventional infrastructure when its protective function is properly assessed.

JAMAICA’S REAL ADVANTAGE: THE ABILITY TO CONNECT WORLDS

The comparison of the ten countries ultimately produces a conclusion that goes beyond tourism. No regional model can be imported wholesale into Jamaica. The Dominican Republic has scale; the Bahamas have proximity to the United States and a strong premium specialization; Trinidad and Tobago has energy depth; Guyana has an expanding oil rent; Barbados has remarkable diplomatic capacity; Cuba possesses territorial and historical depth; Haiti has considerable human and diasporic weight; Belize possesses extraordinary natural capital; and the smaller Eastern Caribbean states are experimenting with new forms of regional integration.

Jamaica possesses something different: the ability to connect several centers of power.

This capacity is already visible in tourism. In 2026, Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism has highlighted, among other developments, the growth of Latin American markets and increased air connectivity with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Arrivals from these markets recorded significant growth in 2025, with more than 62,000 additional visitors compared with the previous year, according to figures communicated by the Ministry. This development is strategically significant because it demonstrates that the geographic diversification of Jamaica’s visitor base is already becoming a reality.

The next step is to transform tourism diversification into economic diversification. A Latin American visitor should not represent merely a new market for Jamaican hotels. That visitor can become an entry point for broader commercial, cultural, academic and technological relationships. The same logic can be applied to African, European and Asian markets. Tourism diversification can therefore become an instrument of economic foreign policy.

CARICOM: FROM GEOGRAPHIC PROXIMITY TO ECONOMIC DEPTH

Jamaica must also pay close attention to the recent evolution of Caribbean integration. In October 2025, Barbados, Belize, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines began implementing full free movement of their nationals among themselves, allowing them to reside, work and remain on a long term basis in participating states, with associated rights. CARICOM presented the initiative as an implementation of enhanced cooperation provided for under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. This development is particularly important for Jamaica because it demonstrates that regional integration does not necessarily advance uniformly. Groups of countries can deepen their cooperation before the Community as a whole does so.

This evolution could signal a multi speed Caribbean. The strategic question for Jamaica therefore becomes: does Kingston wish to remain within a framework in which regional integration progresses primarily through common institutions, or will it seek to develop more targeted coalitions around mobility, tourism, resilience, culture, education, technology and infrastructure?

Such a strategy would not mean abandoning CARICOM. On the contrary, it could strengthen the Community by using the enhanced cooperation mechanisms already provided for. Jamaica possesses sufficient political, economic and cultural weight to become one of the driving forces behind a more operational form of regional integration.

Tourism could be the first testing ground. A Caribbean capable of offering several complementary destinations within a single international itinerary would be economically stronger than a succession of isolated markets. Kingston, Montego Bay, Bridgetown, Port of Spain, Nassau, Georgetown, Belize City and other regional centers could be linked through better coordinated aviation, cultural and commercial strategies. The real question is therefore connectivity. A fragmented Caribbean can be highly attractive but economically inefficient. A connected Caribbean can transform its diversity into a global competitive advantage.

The regional comparison leads to a conclusion that must now be integrated into the core of the Jamaican dossier. Jamaica is not facing a conventional tourism competition. It is facing a much broader competition among different models of Caribbean power. Some states rely on tourism scale; others on energy resources, finance, diplomacy, natural capital, geographic position or demographic depth. Jamaica possesses a different combination: global culture, tourism, diaspora, diplomacy, resilience and the capacity to connect multiple markets.

This combination can become a considerable advantage provided that it is not fragmented. National strategy should therefore focus less on maximizing each asset separately than on creating synergies among them. Tourism should stimulate agriculture and the cultural industry. Culture should feed intellectual property exports. The diaspora should strengthen investment and skills transfer. Resilience should become an exportable capability. CARICOM should become a platform for scale. Engagement with Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia should be transformed into economic diversification. Digital capacity should connect the entire system.

Jamaica already possesses influence greater than its material weight. The real challenge from 2026 to 2035 is to convert that influence into institutional, productive and financial capacity. Only under this condition will the notion of a new Caribbean sovereignty cease to be a political formula and become an economic reality.

JAMAICA TOWARD 2035: WHAT MODEL OF POWER FOR A CARIBBEAN ISLAND IN A FRAGMENTED WORLD?

The 2035 horizon is not merely an administrative deadline for Jamaica. It represents the moment when several transformations already under way will have to produce sufficiently visible results to determine whether the island has succeeded in changing the structure of its economy, strengthening its resilience, broadening its productive base and converting its international influence into sustainable economic capacity. The question is all the more important because Jamaica enters this pivotal period with a relatively solid institutional legacy, a globally recognized cultural identity, a mature tourism economy, a significant diaspora and a strategic geographic position, but also with structural constraints that cannot be resolved through rising tourist arrivals or increased foreign investment alone. The country already has a long term national framework through Vision 2030 Jamaica, which seeks to make Jamaica “the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business.” The Planning Institute of Jamaica presents this framework as an architecture integrating the economic, social, environmental and institutional dimensions of national development. The real question for the next decade, therefore, will be less whether Jamaica has a vision than whether that vision can be transformed into a sufficiently deep productive architecture capable of withstanding external shocks and enabling the population to benefit more fully from the wealth created.

This question becomes particularly important in an island economy open to the world. Jamaica controls neither North American economic cycles, nor international financial conditions, nor global tourism flows, nor technological transformations, nor the evolution of the climate. It can, however, progressively control the way it organizes its resources, institutions, infrastructure, human capital and international relationships. The economic sovereignty of a small state therefore does not mean self sufficiency. It means the capacity to reduce critical dependencies, diversify sources of revenue, retain more value within the national economy and possess sufficient institutional capabilities to absorb disruptions without undermining the foundations of development. It is from this perspective that 2035 should be understood: not as a promise of an international ranking, but as a test of structural transformation.

THE FIRST SCENARIO: JAMAICA BY EXTENSION

The first scenario is one of continuity. It would be neither catastrophic nor genuinely transformative. Jamaica would continue to make progress in tourism, services, cultural industries and certain export activities, while maintaining prudent macroeconomic policies and benefiting from the growth of international markets. Infrastructure would gradually improve, foreign investment would continue to support certain sectors and the tourism economy would remain the principal source of foreign exchange. The country would retain its international attractiveness and continue to benefit from its global image.

But this trajectory would contain a fundamental weakness: it would leave much of the structure of existing dependencies intact. Growth would remain highly exposed to tourism cycles, economic conditions in source markets, climate disasters and the imports required for the functioning of a large part of the economy. Employment could increase without productivity improving sufficiently. The value generated by tourism could continue to rise without local businesses capturing a sufficiently large share of visitor spending. Jamaica’s international reputation could remain exceptional without necessarily translating into equivalent capabilities in technological, industrial, scientific or financial sectors.

This is precisely the scenario Jamaica must avoid confusing with success. An economy can grow without sufficiently changing its structure. It can welcome more visitors, attract more capital and record better macroeconomic performance while remaining vulnerable to the same shocks as before. The continuation of the current model would therefore offer a certain degree of stability, but not necessarily a transformation of the country’s strategic position.

THE SECOND SCENARIO: JAMAICA OF PRODUCTIVE DIVERSIFICATION

The second scenario would involve a more ambitious transformation in which tourism would remain central but cease to be regarded as an isolated industry. It would become a platform capable of stimulating agriculture, food processing, transportation, digital services, audiovisual production, music, design, gastronomy, professional services, education and environmental activities. This approach would correspond to a value chain logic in which every dollar spent by a visitor would have greater opportunities to circulate within the national economy before leaving the territory.

Such a transformation would require an industrial policy adapted to the country’s size. Jamaica could not seek to produce everything it consumes. It would have to identify the sectors in which it can become competitive at the regional or global level. Agro processing, cultural products, digital services, selected medical and educational activities, logistics, specialized financial services, climate resilience solutions and creative industries could constitute particularly relevant areas of diversification. The Jamaican government is already working on certain dimensions of this approach. The Tourism 3.0 framework, in particular, emphasizes strengthening links with local industries and enabling more Jamaicans to participate in the tourism value chain. Agricultural policy also provides an example of this orientation: in 2026, the government announced a programme aimed at establishing 3,000 hectares of fruit trees by 2035.

The real challenge would then be to avoid multiplying sectoral programmes without coordination. Productive diversification can work only if agricultural, tourism, industrial, educational, digital, energy and financial policies are conceived as components of the same system. The objective would no longer simply be to develop several sectors, but to create economic relationships among them.

THE THIRD SCENARIO: JAMAICA AS A CONNECTED CARIBBEAN POWER

The third scenario would be more ambitious still. It would consist of making Jamaica not only a diversified economy, but a Caribbean platform connecting several regions of the world. Its advantage would not be the size of its domestic market. It would be its ability to connect North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and, progressively, Africa and Asia through tourism, culture, trade, services, education, technology and economic diplomacy.

This strategy is already compatible with certain developments observable in Jamaican policy. In 2026, the government notably worked on strengthening connections with Africa through tourism, the arts, culture and sport. The next step would be to give these connections much greater economic depth. A relationship with Africa should not be limited to cultural exchanges; it could progressively encompass creative industries, education, digital services, investment, agribusiness and infrastructure. In the same way, Jamaica’s opening toward Latin America could be transformed into a commercial and university strategy, while relations with North American markets could evolve from a primarily tourism based model toward investment, services and innovation.

Under this model, Kingston could become more than a national capital. It could progressively function as one of the intellectual, cultural, financial and diplomatic centres of the English speaking Caribbean, while Montego Bay would retain its major role in international tourism. This territorial complementarity would be important because national power cannot be sustainably concentrated in a single metropolis or economic corridor.

THE FOURTH SCENARIO: A RESILIENT JAMAICA

A fourth scenario must be incorporated into any serious reflection on 2035: that of a Jamaica that makes climate and infrastructure resilience a genuine national specialization. Natural disasters should no longer be regarded solely as exceptional events that temporarily interrupt growth. In an island economy exposed to climate risks, they must be incorporated into the very design of development.

Reconstruction following a major shock can become an opportunity to transform building standards, energy systems, water networks, transportation infrastructure, telecommunications, agricultural systems and insurance mechanisms. Jamaica could thereby develop an exportable expertise in island resilience. Such expertise would have considerable regional value because many Caribbean states face comparable challenges.

Resilience would then become a knowledge industry. Universities, engineering firms, insurance companies, public institutions, architects, environmental specialists and technology companies could work together to create solutions adapted to small island economies. Jamaica would not simply benefit from rebuilding faster. It could learn to rebuild better and transform that experience into an economic advantage.

THE FIFTH SCENARIO: JAMAICA AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION

Technology is probably the least visible but one of the most decisive variables for the 2035 horizon. Jamaica will not be able to compete with major powers in the production of foundational technologies, but it can become competitive in their adaptation, integration and export to markets facing constraints similar to its own. Artificial intelligence, financial technologies, cybersecurity, digital services, intelligent infrastructure management, precision agriculture, climate technologies and data analytics can progressively become components of the new Jamaican economy.

This orientation is beginning to emerge on the national agenda. In 2026, the Jamaican government was preparing a National Science, Technology and Innovation Strategic Plan covering 2026 to 2035, presented as a framework intended to better convert research, knowledge and innovation into national development outcomes. The challenge will be to move from strategy to ecosystem. A technology policy cannot be limited to producing documents or financing a few projects. It must connect universities, businesses, investors, the state, young researchers and international markets.

Jamaica possesses here a strategic resource that is often underestimated: its diaspora. Jamaican professionals living in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere can contribute to the circulation of skills, capital, technologies and commercial networks. The diaspora should therefore not be viewed solely as a source of financial transfers. It can become a global infrastructure of expertise.

THE CENTRAL QUESTION: WHAT JAMAICA IN 2035?

These scenarios are not mutually exclusive. The most credible trajectory would precisely be a combination of the second, third, fourth and fifth. Jamaica could retain tourism as a major engine while building a more diversified economy around it, use its culture as an export instrument, transform its diaspora into a global economic network, make resilience a specialization, develop its digital capabilities and use CARICOM as a platform for scale.

Such a strategy would nevertheless require one fundamental condition: continuity in public planning. Vision 2030 Jamaica already constitutes a long term architecture and integrates economic, social, environmental and governance dimensions. The Planning Institute of Jamaica also emphasizes the importance of monitoring, evaluation, policy coherence and strengthening the national statistical system. The post 2030 period should therefore not be conceived as an administrative rupture, but as a second generation of national planning built upon the lessons of Vision 2030.

The real challenge will be to define a limited number of priorities sufficiently precise to survive political changes. Jamaica cannot build a sustainable national transformation by constantly changing its priorities. Critical infrastructure, education, productivity, climate resilience, productive diversification, technology, health, energy security and institutional quality must be regarded as investments in national continuity rather than programmes belonging to a particular government.

2035: THE TRANSITION FROM INFLUENCE TO POWER

At the conclusion of this analysis, one distinction becomes essential. Jamaica already possesses influence. Its music is global, its identity is immediately recognizable, its athletes occupy an exceptional place in the international imagination, its tourism benefits from an established reputation, its diaspora is broadly present in the principal Western economic centres and its diplomacy benefits from historical experience greater than that of many small states.

But influence is not yet power. Influence becomes power when it can be converted into investment, skilled employment, exports, intellectual property, technological capabilities, infrastructure, institutions and negotiating power. It is precisely this conversion that must define Jamaica’s agenda through 2035.

Jamaica therefore does not need to become the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago or Guyana. It must become a more productive, more resilient, more technological and more connected version of itself. Its comparative advantage does not lie in reproducing existing regional models. It lies in selectively combining them with its own strengths.

The country could thereby build a model of power specific to the small states of the twenty first century: a form of power without territorial domination, without exceptional demographic depth and without a major energy rent, but founded on the connection of networks, institutional quality, human capital, culture, technology, resilience and the ability to transform a global identity into economic value.

By 2035, the question will therefore no longer be only how many visitors Jamaica receives, how many rooms it has or what its growth rate will be. It will be whether the country controls a greater proportion of the capabilities from which its wealth is generated, what proportion of its value added remains within the national economy, how many young people can access skilled employment, how many Jamaican companies can export, how many technologies can be developed locally, how many disasters can be absorbed without permanently interrupting economic activity and what influence Kingston can exercise in shaping the new economic rules of the Caribbean. This is where the real 2035 horizon lies. Jamaica will not be judged solely by its ability to attract the world. It will be judged by its ability to make the world a partner in its own transformation.

CPGNNews PERSPECTIVE

Jamaica offers the Caribbean a lesson that extends far beyond the island’s borders. It demonstrates that a country of relatively limited size can possess international influence considerably greater than its demographic and economic weight, but it also reminds us that influence that does not translate into productive capacity remains fragile. Reggae, heritage, athletics, creativity, the diaspora, tourism and Jamaica’s international image constitute exceptional capital. Yet the country’s real challenge is no longer to demonstrate that it possesses a global identity. That demonstration has long been made. The challenge now is to convert that identity into sustainable prosperity, skilled employment, competitive enterprises, intellectual property, innovation, infrastructure and negotiating capacity.

This question takes on particular importance as the Caribbean enters a period of structural transformation. The states of the region do not possess the same resources and do not follow the same trajectories. Some are building their advantage around mass tourism, others around energy, finance, diplomacy, biodiversity or geographic position. Jamaica can hardly win a competition based solely on size. It does, however, have the possibility of building power based on connectivity. Its culture can feed its tourism; tourism can stimulate agriculture, gastronomy, transportation and creative industries; its diaspora can strengthen investment and skills transfers; its universities can support innovation; its geographic position can facilitate trade; its diplomacy can transform cultural capital into international influence. The real Jamaican project is therefore to transform a constellation of advantages into a coherent national system.

There is one requirement in this trajectory that CPGNNews considers fundamental: not confusing growth with transformation. An increase in visitors, investment or revenues can be positive without necessarily altering the structural vulnerabilities of an economy. Transformation begins when more value remains in the country, when local companies move upward in value chains, when young people acquire new skills, when infrastructure becomes more resilient, when economic sectors reinforce one another and when cultural and natural resources are regarded as economic assets to be protected and developed. This orientation is also consistent with several objectives already embedded in Vision 2030 Jamaica, which emphasizes increasing the value retained locally in tourism, greater use of Jamaican resources and culture, and the integration of environmental management into development.

Jamaica also possesses an institutional advantage that it should never take for granted. In a global environment marked by uncertainty, the ability to plan over several decades, measure results and maintain strategic continuity becomes a form of power in itself. The Planning Institute of Jamaica remains at the centre of this architecture, with an approach that links economic planning, social development, the environment, governance and public policy monitoring. The country therefore possesses a foundation upon which a new generation of public policy can be built. The essential question will be continuity: transforming plans into results, results into capabilities and capabilities into lasting advantages for the population.

But no national strategy can be sustainable if it does not produce a tangible improvement in everyday life. The power of a state is not measured solely by its international attractiveness. It is also measured by the quality of its schools, the security of its communities, the reliability of its infrastructure, the ability of its citizens to access decent employment, the quality of public services and the trust that society can place in its institutions. Jamaica’s community development policies already demonstrate this understanding by linking governance, social transformation, security, economic development, physical transformation and youth development. The next step must be to make this inclusive logic a central component of the national competitiveness strategy.

Climate change imposes another requirement. For an island nation, protecting the environment is not a luxury added to growth. It is a condition of growth itself. Beaches, reefs, forests, watersheds, rural landscapes and marine ecosystems constitute both natural heritage and economic infrastructure. Their degradation simultaneously weakens tourism, agriculture, food security, infrastructure and quality of life. Vision 2030 Jamaica already recognizes this interdependence by integrating risk reduction, climate adaptation, environmental management and the valuation of ecological capital into its national architecture.

By 2035, Jamaica will therefore have to choose between two conceptions of its future. The first would consist of protecting and gradually improving the existing model. The second would consist of using existing strengths to build a new model. CPGNNews considers that only the second path will truly enable Jamaica to convert influence into power. This does not mean abandoning tourism, but moving beyond it in depth; it does not mean reducing the importance of culture, but giving it an economic architecture; it does not mean closing the economy to foreign capital, but strengthening national capacity to negotiate, invest, produce and retain more value; it does not mean pursuing self sufficiency, but building a less vulnerable form of interdependence.

Jamaica does not need to become the largest economy in the Caribbean to become one of its most important powers. It must become one of the economies most capable of transforming intangible assets into material capabilities. Its true wealth does not lie only in what the world already knows about it. It lies in what it can still build from that exceptional capital.

Perhaps this is ultimately the deepest question raised by Jamaica’s trajectory. For decades, the world has come to Jamaica to listen, watch, discover, celebrate and dream. The next stage is to ensure that this relationship with the world generates more knowledge, technologies, businesses, skills, income and opportunities for Jamaicans themselves. A nation capable of achieving this conversion no longer merely becomes known throughout the world. It becomes capable of acting upon the world.

FROM INFLUENCE TO POWER: JAMAICA TOWARD 2035

Jamaica enters the next decade with a paradoxical situation that summarizes much of its contemporary trajectory. It possesses international influence that few states of its size can match, but this influence has not yet been transformed into economic power of comparable magnitude. It possesses a cultural identity that has become global, a tourism industry deeply integrated into international circuits, a diaspora present in several of the planet’s principal economic centres, a relatively solid institutional tradition and a recognized diplomatic capacity. Yet it remains exposed to structural dependencies linked to external markets, imports, tourism, climate disasters, international financial conditions and the limitations of its domestic market. Jamaica’s challenge is therefore not to create influence where none exists. It is to build the economic, technological and institutional mechanisms capable of converting already exceptional influence into lasting national capacity.

The analysis conducted throughout this dossier shows that tourism remains indispensable to this transformation, but can no longer be considered an end in itself. Its true potential emerges when it becomes an economic infrastructure connecting agriculture, food processing, transportation, services, culture, digital activity, artistic creation, finance, education and rural territories. The central question is no longer simply how many visitors Jamaica can accommodate, but how much national value each visitor can help create. This distinction between volume and depth is decisive. Sustainable tourism growth must generate more skilled employment, strengthen local businesses, stimulate domestic production, support communities and progressively reduce value leakage. Vision 2030 Jamaica had already identified this necessity by including among its objectives the increase of local added value and greater use of Jamaican resources and culture within the tourism sector.

Productive diversification consequently emerges as the second condition of economic sovereignty. Jamaica does not possess Guyana’s or Trinidad and Tobago’s energy rent, the Dominican Republic’s territorial scale or the Bahamas’ exceptional geographic proximity to the United States. It should therefore not seek to reproduce these models. Its advantage lies in the combination of less visible but potentially extremely powerful resources: cultural capital, human capital, diaspora, international reputation, tourism, geographic position, institutional capacity and diplomatic networks. National strategy should consist of transforming this combination into a productive system. Agriculture can supply more of the tourism industry; creative industries can export more intellectual property; universities can become centres of innovation; digital companies can serve Caribbean markets; infrastructure can be designed as regional platforms; the diaspora can become an investment and skills network rather than merely a channel for financial transfers.

Resilience constitutes the third fundamental dimension. For an island state, climate change is not a peripheral variable in economic policy. It directly affects infrastructure, agriculture, energy, water, transportation, tourism, insurance and public finances. Resilience must therefore be integrated into the very design of national development. A road, port, airport, hotel, electricity network, agricultural system or urban area can no longer be evaluated solely according to its immediate profitability. It must also be assessed according to its ability to function after a shock. This evolution creates an additional strategic opportunity for Jamaica: to become a Caribbean laboratory for island resilience and transform accumulated experience into skills, technologies and services that can be exported to other states in the region.

Technology represents the fourth indispensable transformation. The twenty first century will not allow island economies to remain sustainably competitive while relying primarily on low productivity activities. Artificial intelligence, digital services, financial technologies, cybersecurity, data, intelligent energy systems, precision agriculture and climate technologies will progressively alter the conditions of competitiveness. Jamaica has already begun strategic reflection through the preparation of a National Science, Technology and Innovation Strategic Plan covering 2026 to 2035. The challenge now will be to connect this policy with universities, businesses, investors, young researchers and international markets so that innovation does not remain a sectoral policy but becomes a cross cutting component of economic transformation.

The fifth dimension is human. No economic model can become a genuine national strategy if a significant proportion of young people remain disconnected from the skills corresponding to tomorrow’s jobs. Education, vocational training, research, entrepreneurship and skills mobility must be regarded as infrastructure just as important as roads, ports or digital networks. The diaspora represents a major strategic opportunity here. Generations of Jamaicans have built careers in major international economic centres. The challenge is not simply to encourage them to send more money to the island. It is to create conditions under which knowledge, professional networks, capital, technologies and entrepreneurial projects can circulate in both directions. A diaspora fully integrated into national strategy could become an extension of Jamaican human capital across the world.

The sixth dimension is regional. Jamaica cannot build alone all the economies of scale it will need. CARICOM therefore represents much more than a diplomatic framework. It can become an instrument of economic depth. Regional integration can expand markets, facilitate the movement of skills, coordinate certain infrastructure, improve air and maritime connectivity, strengthen negotiating capacity and build value chains at a scale inaccessible to each small state individually. Jamaica possesses sufficient demographic, economic, cultural and diplomatic weight to play a leading role in this evolution. The new Caribbean competition should therefore not be understood solely as rivalry among destinations. It should also be regarded as an opportunity to construct a more complementary regional architecture.

This approach leads to a redefinition of sovereignty itself. For a small open economy, sovereignty does not mean isolation. It means the ability to choose its interdependencies. It means possessing sufficient productive, financial, human, technological and institutional resources to prevent any single dependency from destabilizing the entire national system. Jamaica will not be able to eliminate its dependence on international markets, nor should it seek to do so. It can, however, diversify its partners, strengthen internal capabilities, increase local value retention, develop new export sectors and build institutions robust enough to absorb shocks.

In this respect, the Jamaican experience offers a lesson extending far beyond the island. Small states in the twenty first century will not necessarily be condemned to marginality within an international system dominated by major powers. They can build disproportionate influence if they know how to transform their specific advantages into networks of power. Contemporary power can be cultural, financial, diplomatic, technological, normative, intellectual or logistical. It can derive less from the possession of vast territory than from the ability to connect territories, markets, knowledge and populations.

Jamaica already possesses part of this architecture. It must now organize it. Its future will therefore not depend on a single sector, a single government or a particular economic cycle. It will depend on its ability to maintain a sufficiently coherent strategic direction so that investments made today produce their effects over periods of ten, fifteen or twenty years. Vision 2030 Jamaica already provides a foundation for national planning; the coming decade will determine whether this architecture can be extended through a new generation of policies capable of integrating productivity, innovation, resilience, inclusion and international openness.

By 2035, the true indicator of Jamaican success will therefore not simply be GDP, the number of tourists or the volume of foreign investment. It will be much deeper: the ability of the economy to create value from its own resources, the ability of national companies to enter global value chains, the ability of young people to secure skilled employment, the ability of infrastructure to withstand shocks, the ability of institutions to maintain a long term strategy and the ability of the country to convert its exceptional international reputation into economic and diplomatic influence.

Jamaica already possesses something that many countries spend decades trying to build: a national identity immediately recognizable throughout the world. The next step is to transform that identity into a development architecture. The country does not need to become larger in order to become more powerful. It needs to become more productive, more connected, more resilient, more innovative and more capable of retaining the value created within its territory.

This transformation contains the true Jamaican perspective. A Jamaica capable of connecting culture and economics, tourism and production, diaspora and investment, universities and innovation, resilience and technology, diplomacy and trade, regional integration and global competitiveness would no longer be merely a major Caribbean destination. It would become one of the most compelling laboratories for understanding the power of small states in the twenty first century.

METHODOLOGICAL NOTE

This dossier on Jamaica has been conceived as a long term strategic analysis, rather than as a simple accumulation of economic, tourism or institutional statistics. Understanding Jamaica toward 2035 requires looking beyond individual indicators and placing the island within the broader space to which it belongs: the Caribbean, North America, Latin America, as well as the economic, cultural and geopolitical networks that connect it to the rest of the world. The objective has therefore been to understand how the country’s different strengths can reinforce one another or, conversely, neutralize one another. The economy, tourism, agriculture, industry, infrastructure, trade, public finances, climate, energy, culture, diaspora, governance, diplomacy, regional integration and geopolitical developments have thus been considered as components of a single system. This approach makes it possible to better understand an essential reality: the power of a small state almost never rests on a single sector, but on its ability to connect several sources of value effectively.

The dossier draws on a cross examination of national, regional and international sources. The data and information used have been compared, where necessary, with publications from the Jamaican Government, national statistical institutions, the Bank of Jamaica, the Jamaican Ministry of Tourism, the Jamaica Tourist Board, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Inter American Development Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank, the Caribbean Tourism Organization, CARICOM, the United Nations and specialized organizations working on trade, climate, transportation, energy and development. Information concerning international markets, tourism, investment and geopolitical developments has also been examined from a comparative perspective. This cross checking of sources serves a simple purpose: to distinguish, as far as possible, between what reflects a durable structural trend and what remains a temporary or cyclical phenomenon.

Particular attention has been paid to the distinction between what is observed, projected, announced or interpreted. This distinction is fundamental when a dossier looks toward 2035. An economic projection is not an established outcome. A government target does not necessarily constitute a future reality. A current trend does not guarantee that it will continue for ten years. The forward looking data used in this study must therefore be understood as possible trajectories, subject to economic, climate, political, financial and geopolitical factors that can evolve rapidly. Where several futures remain possible, the dossier prioritizes analysis of the mechanisms that could produce those trajectories rather than artificial numerical precision that could create an illusion of certainty.

The regional comparison has been constructed according to the same principle of caution. The Dominican Republic, The Bahamas, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Haiti, Cuba, Belize and the other Caribbean economies do not have the same populations, territories, natural resources, productive structures or institutions. Directly comparing their GDP, populations, tourist arrivals or debt levels could therefore lead to simplistic conclusions. The dossier instead seeks to understand how each country transforms its own resources into power. Tourism scale, energy, natural capital, finance, diplomacy, diaspora, infrastructure, culture, human resources, connectivity and institutional capacity thus become comparative lenses. The question is not which country is “better” than another, but why some states are more effective than others at converting their advantages into influence and economic value.

Tourism has received particularly broad treatment. International arrivals remain an essential indicator, but they tell only part of the story. A visitor represents more than a hotel night or an airline ticket. A visitor can generate demand for agriculture, food, transportation, culture, digital services, handicrafts, entertainment, professional services and numerous local activities. The dossier therefore also examines length of stay, expenditure, employment, infrastructure, supply chains, investment, taxation and potential value leakage from the national economy. This perspective leads to a consideration of tourism not as an isolated activity, but as a cross cutting economic infrastructure capable of connecting several Jamaican sectors.

The climate dimension has been integrated into the analysis because it can no longer be treated as an external variable affecting the economy. For an island exposed to hurricanes, floods, coastal erosion, drought episodes, ecosystem degradation and sea level rise, climate directly influences growth. A single shock can simultaneously affect roads, ports, airports, electricity networks, agriculture, tourism, water systems, insurance and public finances. Resilience must therefore be regarded as a component of national competitiveness. Infrastructure capable of continuing to function after a disaster is not merely better protected infrastructure; it is also infrastructure that protects economic activity, employment, public revenues and investor confidence.

The dossier also gives significant attention to two assets that are often underestimated in conventional economic analyses: culture and the diaspora. Jamaican culture is already a form of international power. Reggae, athletics, audiovisual production, gastronomy, heritage and the country’s global image constitute a form of capital capable of generating exports, intellectual property, tourism, employment and international networks. The diaspora, meanwhile, represents much more than a source of financial remittances. It can contribute to investment, skills circulation, innovation, professional networks, entrepreneurship and access to new markets. Their potential nevertheless depends on one essential condition: Jamaica’s ability to transform these dispersed assets into components of a coherent national strategy.

Technology constitutes another cross cutting dimension of this study. The objective is not to portray Jamaica as a future competitor to the major technological powers. Such an ambition would be disproportionate. The question is rather to determine in which areas a small state can use advanced technologies to increase productivity, improve public services, strengthen infrastructure, develop new businesses and address needs specific to island economies. Artificial intelligence, digital services, financial technology, cybersecurity, data, precision agriculture, climate technologies and smart energy systems are therefore considered less as isolated sectors than as tools capable of transforming the economy as a whole.

Finally, the dossier deliberately adopts a forward looking perspective. 2035 is not presented as a date of prediction, but as a horizon for decision making. What matters is not to claim that we know exactly what Jamaica will look like nine years from now, but to identify the choices that can alter its trajectory today. Institutional stability, macroeconomic discipline, the evolution of tourism, market diversification, climate resilience, digital transformation, diaspora mobilization, infrastructure, CARICOM integration, relations with the United States, opening toward Latin America and Africa, and the restructuring of global value chains are all variables capable of shaping that trajectory.

This approach ultimately leads to one of the dossier’s principal guiding themes: Jamaican power cannot be measured solely by the size of its economy. It must also be assessed through the country’s ability to transform its cultural, human, geographic, institutional and economic resources into durable capabilities. A song that becomes global, a visitor arriving on the island, a member of the diaspora making an investment, a university developing an innovation, infrastructure surviving a disaster or a local company gaining access to a foreign market all contribute, at different levels, to the same dynamic.

This is why the dossier repeatedly returns to a central idea: Jamaica does not necessarily need to become the largest power in the Caribbean. It needs to become one of the economies most capable of connecting its own strengths with one another and linking them to the world. The real question for 2035 is therefore not simply what Jamaica possesses today, but what it will be capable of doing with what it already possesses.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

All rights reserved. © CPGNNews, CaribPulse Global News Network.

Any reproduction, adaptation, translation, distribution or use, in whole or in part, of this dossier must respect copyright and provide the corresponding attribution to CPGNNews. The references, data, documents, analyses and works cited or used in this study remain the intellectual property of their respective authors, institutions and organizations.

EDITORIAL OPENING

CPGNNews remains open to documented observations, constructive comments, intellectual contributions and differing perspectives capable of enriching the understanding of Jamaica’s trajectory and the profound transformations currently reshaping the Caribbean. Tourism development, productive diversification, the effects of climate change, technological transformation, diaspora mobilization, the evolution of regional integration and the redefinition of power relations are all dimensions that must be analyzed simultaneously in order to understand the choices Jamaica will face over the coming decade.

In this spirit, the present dossier does not seek to provide a definitive reading of Jamaica’s future or to impose a single model of development or power. It offers a strategic analysis intended to place in perspective the strengths, vulnerabilities, opportunities and choices confronting the island in a changing regional and international environment. Its purpose is to contribute to a substantive debate on Jamaica’s ability to transform its exceptional cultural and tourism influence into lasting productive, technological, institutional, financial and diplomatic capacity, while strengthening its resilience and its role within the Caribbean.

The dossier therefore invites readers, researchers, academics, diplomats, public officials, economic actors, tourism professionals, civil society representatives and citizens to consider Jamaica not only as a major tourism destination, but as a Caribbean state in search of a new model of power. By 2035, the question will no longer be only how many visitors the island can accommodate, but how much value it can retain, what capabilities it can build, which markets it can connect and how much influence it can convert into sustainable prosperity for its population.

Fact based debate is not a weakness of analysis; it is one of its essential conditions. CPGNNews therefore seeks to prioritize documentary rigor, plurality of perspectives, argumentative coherence and freedom of intellectual debate, in the conviction that a better understanding of Jamaica also contributes to a better understanding of the transformation of the Caribbean.

SOURCES AND INSTITUTIONAL REFERENCES

The principal families of sources consulted include Jamaican public institutions, particularly organizations responsible for public finance, tourism, trade, foreign affairs, planning, statistics, agriculture, energy and national resilience; regional institutions such as CARICOM, the Caribbean Tourism Organization and the Caribbean Development Bank; international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter American Development Bank; United Nations organizations and their specialized agencies; as well as international statistical and economic sources used for regional and global comparisons.

Journalistic and specialized sources have been used primarily to document recent developments, government announcements, sectoral transformations and events capable of rapidly altering Jamaica’s environment. They have been treated as complementary to institutional sources rather than as substitutes for them. Where contradictory data could arise, methodological priority has been given to primary sources, official statistical series and institutions with direct expertise in the subject under consideration.

The final bibliography may be organized by category so that readers can clearly distinguish between economic, tourism, climate, institutional, diplomatic, commercial, demographic and geopolitical sources. Such an organization is particularly important for a reference dossier intended to remain useful over several years, because some quantitative data will evolve while structural analyses will retain their relevance.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The preparation of this dossier owes much to the institutions, researchers, statisticians, economists, diplomats, tourism professionals, academics, journalists, and regional and international organizations that produce the data required to better understand Jamaica and the Caribbean. Their work constitutes an indispensable intellectual infrastructure for any serious analysis of regional development.

We also thank the Jamaican and Caribbean institutions that make their data, reports, statistics and analyses accessible to the public. Without this documentary availability, it would be impossible to construct a sufficiently rigorous comparative assessment of the economic, social, climate and geopolitical transformations affecting the region.

Special recognition is due to the researchers and observers of the Caribbean who, often with limited resources, contribute to bringing greater visibility to a region whose strategic importance extends far beyond the peripheral representation it still receives in some international analyses.

This dossier is dedicated to those who believe that understanding the Caribbean means more than observing its crises or vulnerabilities. It means recognizing its capabilities, transformations, contradictions and potential within the global order of the twenty first century.

CPGNNEWS EDITORIAL INFORMATION

Geopolitical intelligence at the service of decision making.

CaribPulse Global News Network, CPGNNews.

Multilingual international editorial platform born in the Caribbean

Think the Caribbean. Understand the world.

To contact the newsroom: info@cpgnnews.com