Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sackett. My guest today has long been

one of the most high-profile international advocates for the charms of his country. Edmund Bartlett

is a long-serving politician in the Jamaican Labour Party. He's served as a minister in several

different departments over several decades. But for the last

eight years, he's been the island nation's minister of tourism. It is a job that matters.

Tourism accounts for one-third of Jamaica's economic activity. Having bounced back from COVID,

there is now an ambitious plan to get annual visitor numbers up to six, even eight million.

A pretty extraordinary number for an island of fewer than three million people.

But there are problems clouding this sunny horizon.

Climate change and more frequent extreme weather events threaten to cost Jamaica deer.

And the island's attractiveness to visitors has taken a hit thanks to endemic violence and gang-related

crime, which has put Jamaica close to the top of the Global League Table for murders per capita.

Internal instability used to dog Jamaican politics and management of the economy,

but in recent years, the political scene has been calmer, and Jamaica has sought to wield significant

influence on the world stage in debates about climate change and reparations for slavery. But still,

Jamaicans want to see their country made more

secure. What will that take? Well, Edmund Bartlett joins me now. Welcome to Hardtall.

Thank you very much, Stephen. It's my honor and pleasure to share this 25 minutes or so with you.

Thank you. We're delighted you here. Let's start with your specific responsibility, your portfolio, tourism in Jamaica.

Do you think it is healthy for Jamaica to be an economy that right now is so heavily dependent on tourism?

Tourism is a role in economic development and economic building is very pervasive and sometimes misunderstood

because tourism is not a single economic activity.

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