Mass tourism is doing more harm than good

THE EDITOR, Madam:

NOTABLE TOURISM practitioners have been requesting a meeting with the minister of tourism and the minister of investment to discuss Jamaica’s tourism investment policy and strategy to no avail.

The focus of the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) is on increasing tourism arrivals and earnings. These measures, however, are superficial as they do not focus on the development impact on our people.

Though these numbers are touted daily, we are of the view that this is the wrong approach for Jamaica and the Caribbean to be pursuing for the following reasons:

– Sustainable tourism development must positively impact the living conditions of the people and certainly must have a tremendous positive impact on the communities surrounding resort areas. The focus must not be totally on profits for the investors as this will kill the golden egg that attracts visitors in the first place.

– Massive foreign-owned ‘all inclusive hotels’ are exclusively for foreigners and wealthy Jamaicans, and their facilities and beaches are mostly off limits for locals.

– Environmental impacts particularly on coastal and marine areas are negative, especially in areas like Negril where reefs have disappeared and this seriously affects fishermen.

– Most of the earnings do not even come to Jamaica or the Caribbean and they only bring in sufficient funds to pay employees and minimal taxes and purchase some local goods and services.

– The result is that all our major resort towns have beautiful properties on the beach side and slums or squatter settlements across the road. Developing these communities is essential for sustainability. Many of the hotel workers live in the squatter settlements and these areas have little or no access to proper facilities.

– The mad rush to build more accommodations such as the four 28-storey apartments in the Pinnacle development without an environmental impact assessment and careful planning of infrastructure improvements such as roads, airports, water and sewage treatment is a disaster in the making. The traffic congestion on the entire north coast is already painful and will only get worse if not adequately addressed.

Boutique hotels and communitybased cultural attractions and events, we contend, must be our focus. This would include the development of our communities to encourage and ensure their ability to interact with our visitors. They would reap benefits of doing businesses which can provide tangible improvements to their standard of living.

All we are asking for is an opportunity to discuss the above. We hope the GOJ lends an ear to us.

ROBERT STEPHENS rspragma@yahoo.com