George Brown College and global academic centre sign travel industry MOU
April 11, 2022
George Brown College (GBC) is the first Canadian institution of higher learning to collaborate with a global academic centre focused on travel industry crises and resilience.
Dr. Gervan Fearon, the President of the College, and Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, who co-founded the Global Tourism Resilience & Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC) based at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on March 25 at the Jamaican Canadian Association (JCA) Centre.
The GTRCMC grew out of the November 2017 jobs and inclusive growth global conference held in Montego Bay.
The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the Jamaica government, the World Bank Group and the Inter-American Development Bank organized that event to set up a collaborative framework for tourism moving towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
As a key component of the partnership, GBC will set up a satellite centre in Toronto focused on research and development, policy advocacy and communication management, program/project design and management and training and capacity building in various area.
“This partnership will create a new learning and development opportunity for students, faculty and staff with our School of Hospitality & Tourism Management,” said Fearon. “It will also leverage the incredible capacity and strength of our new Brookfield Sustainable Institute. This centre will focus on and be a hub for global warming activities. More importantly, it will be a strength and contribution to taking a look at tourism resiliency across the globe. Together, we will be opening doors to our students, employees and partners to contribute to tourism sustainability in a real and tangible way at a global level.”
The proven collaborative academic leader is confident the partnership will strengthen the tourist industry in Canada, Jamaica and the rest of the world.
“It comes at a critical time for the industry as it recovers from a global pandemic and deals with economic fallout from the ongoing war in Eastern Europe,” Fearon pointed out. “At George Brown College, we believe that by working together and building partnerships to research and anticipate future disruptions, we will enable global tourism destinations and also the industry to enhance its resiliency and recover more effectively from crises.
“Tourism makes us more engaged as global citizens and it provides the foundation for enhancing our understanding and collaboration across societies, institutions and peoples. When we think about tourism and we think about global resiliency and what it means to the tourist industry, we recognize that all countries have a tourist industry that faces an array of challenges and disruptions.”
Bartlett and former UNWTO Secretary General Taleb Rafai established the GTRCMC in 2018.
Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Tourism is the main economic driver for many countries, contributing substantially to income generation, employment and foreign exchange earnings.
Prior to the pandemic, 1.4 billion tourists accounted for US$9 trillion in expenditure and the industry employed 435 million workers, representing 10.5 per of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“The industry grew at a rate faster than every other economic activity and yet it has not mainstreamed sufficiently in academia,” said Bartlett who is the Caribbean’s longest serving tourism minister and Jamaica’s longest serving Cabinet Minister. “So what we are doing here is building that appreciation of not just the economic value of tourism and the academic importance of pursuing studies in the area, but understanding the application of tourism as a driver for transformation and, more importantly, a means of building capacity to respond to global disruptions and to be able to mitigate, manage and recover quickly.”
The GTRCMC has partnerships with schools of higher learning in Jordan and Kenya.
“We are looking at Florida next on this side of the world and Bulgaria and London later on,” said Bartlett who, in 1983, became Jamaica’s youngest minister at age 32. “Hong Kong is also on our radar and we are well down the wicket to establishing centres in Nigeria, Ghana, Botswana, Namibia, Barbados and Belize.”
Dr. Ian Austin, the Dean of the GBC Centre for Business, and Dr. Lloyd Waller who is the GTRCMC Executive Director, were witnesses to the MOU signing in the presence of Jamaica’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment & Sport Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange.
This is not the first time that GBC has collaborated with Caribbean educational institutions to advance learning.
Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett (seated left) and GBC President Dr. Gervan Fearon sign the MOU in the presence of GTRCMC Executive Director Dr. Lloyd Waller (l), GBC Centre for Business Dean Dr. Ian Austin (r) & GBC Provost Dr. Cory Ross (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Since 2003, GBC Early Childhood Education students have had the opportunity to study in Jamaica. Two years later, a reciprocal partnership with Shortwood Teachers’ College was launched that enabled Jamaican students and faculty to come to Toronto to experience play-based learning at the GBC Child Care Lab schools.
In November 2020, GBC signed an MOU with Erdiston Teachers’ Training College in Barbados, paving the way for early childhood education students and faculty exchanges along with joint applied research opportunities and business data analytics activities.
