Bartlett declares ‘the Age of Resilience’ in Canada, urges world to finance tourism’s future before the next crisis

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Against the backdrop of smoke-filled Canadian skies and a global economy in flux, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, recently declared that the world has entered “the Age of Resilience” - and said the survival of tourism now depends on financing people, not just properties. Addressing the Canadian-Caribbean Tourism Resilience Symposium in Toronto, Canada against the backdrop of huge climate change induced forest fires raging in that country, Bartlett said climate disasters, geopolitical conflict, cyber threats and artificial intelligence are no longer arriving one at a time, they are converging. “The fires in Canada are not only a Canadian story.

They are a mirror held up to the world,” Bartlett told diplomats, industry leaders and diaspora representatives. “They tell us that the world has changed. Not temporarily, not superficially, fundamentally.” Bartlett argued that each age rewards a different virtue.

The Industrial Age rewarded production. The Information Age rewarded connectivity. “The Age of Resilience will reward adaptive capacity: the ability to anticipate disruption, absorb shocks, reorganise intelligently and transform before vulnerability becomes collapse,” he said.

He pointed to Canada’s 2024 Jasper wildfire, which forced 20,000 evacuations and crippled the regional visitor economy, as evidence that resilience is about livelihoods, not just landmarks. “A destination is not resilient merely because its iconic assets survive. A destination is resilient when its people can continue to live, work, create and hope,” he argued.

"For policy, that means land management, emergency communications, insurance, workforce protection and tourism planning can no longer sit in separate government silos". Bartlett further observed that “peace is productive infrastructure.” Citing UN Tourism data showing a sharp drop in Middle East arrivals in the first quarter of 2026, he said war wounds tourism even when missiles don’t land. Airspace closures, travel advisories, higher insurance premiums and cancelled conventions all send “economic echoes” through the sector.

“Tourism is one of humanity’s quietest peace institutions. It turns strangers into guests,” Bartlett said. “A peaceful tourism corridor is not merely a route for aircraft and visitors.