Trewlawny 250th Anniversary

NAME OF FEATURE | THE GLEANER | SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2020 9 TRELAWNY 250TH ANNIVERSARY destinations in Jamaica, Trelawny is now being marketed as a tourist destination. Collin Gager, mayor of Falmouth inTrelawny, says the parish is forging ahead with its transformation from an agricultural dependency parish to a vibrant tourism destination. “Tourism is now our major in- come earner here in Trelawny. We have a new cruise-shipping port. Many hotels are being built, and our citizens are excited about those investments,” Gager said. According to him, people who once worked in the cane fields and the sugar factory to give their chil- dren a good educational foundation are nowworking in the tourism sec- tor in the many hotels strategically located on the coastline of the par- ish because the business of sugar cane and rum is now gone. “For us here in Trelawny, sugar has lost its taste, and tourism is the new-found flavour that is providing jobs that are generating economic activities for our people,”Gager said. “Today, we are thankful that we could have transformed in such a humble way, moving from sugar to tourism. It has been a massive growth in recent years,”said Gager, who presides over the Georgian resort town of Falmouth. The parish currently has more than 2,000 hotel rooms, with ap- proximately 6,000 more scheduled to be built on the shoreline between Rio Bueno and Falmouth. Already, Trelawny boasts several leading hotel brands. Excellence Oyster Bay, an adult-only resort; H10 out of Spain, which operates as Ocean Coral Spring; RoyaltonWhite Sand; Royalton Blue Waters; and Melia Braco Village are among the many high-end hotel brands on offer. “Tourism is now our major income earner here in Trelawny. We have a new cruise-shipping port. Many hotels are being built, and our citizens are excited about those investments” Excellence Oyster Bay hotel