Jamaica’s Tourism in Sharp Decline : Anti-Government Protests Hurt Nation’s Key Industry

Authorities here are alarmed at the extent to which anti-government demonstrations have damaged Jamaica’s carefully cultivated image of smiles and sunshine.

According to government figures, foreign tourists have canceled reservations for more than 12,000 room-nights in Jamaican hotels since the Jan. 15-16 protests.

The blow to tourism is a setback for the entire national economy, since tourism is the No. 1 source of foreign revenue and an important source of badly needed jobs. The episode makes it clear that if tourism is one of the brightest hopes for a small, underdeveloped Caribbean nation, it is also one of the most fragile.

Prime Minister Edward Seaga puts much of the blame for the tourist cancellations on the foreign news media, especially television, and he is supported by U.S. Embassy officials.

“I’ve seen some of the most ghastly, distorted reporting that I’ve ever witnessed in my life,” Seaga said. “I’ve seen some instances in which efforts are made to indicate that these are riots.”

Demonstrators, protesting government-decreed increases in fuel prices, blocked streets and roads with hundreds of barricades made of junk and debris. Ten people were killed in scattered shootings at the time, some of which did not seem to be directly related to the demonstrations.

There were no incidents of violence reported on the north coast, where tourism is concentrated in such resorts as Montego Bay and Ocho Rios. Most of the barricades were in Kingston, the capital, a city of 800,000 on the south side of the island.

Demonstrators burned old tires and the abandoned carcasses of junk cars that were dragged into streets. When television cameras focused on the flames, Seaga said, they made it appear that there was widespread burning of property.

“The number of fires that were lit may have been a dozen, may have been two dozen in the entire metropolis,” he said. “Looking at the news you would have believed that the entire city of Kingston was up in flames.”

Jamaican officials are not alone in their criticism of the way the foreign press covered the demonstrations. William Davis, public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy here, said:

“I believe that a disservice was done to the integrity of American journalism. I think there was more than an allowable amount of inaccuracy in some of the reports that got to the States, particularly about ‘riots’ and the burning of automobiles. That never happened. . . . We are really incensed about the treatment of this kind of situation.”

Davis said he knew of no foreign tourist who was hurt or even threatened in the protests.

Of the 10 Jamaicans reported killed, three were looters shot by police at a supermarket. Police said the looters were not involved in the protests, but were “exploiting the situation.”

Among the other victims were four men killed in separate confrontations with the police at barricades.

Seaga accused the political opposition of organizing the demonstrations but said he believes they were not intended to be violent.

“The demonstrations were organized without the destruction of property in mind and without confrontation against our people, but with the very obvious intent of wrecking the tourist trade,” he said.

By sabotaging tourism, he said, the opposition hopes to stifle economic growth and undermine the government’s popularity.

The opposition People’s National Party has not admitted that it organized the demonstrations, only that it supported them once they started.

Alfred Rattray, a leader of the People’s National Party, said, “Of course our members supported the protest, but the essential thing is that this was a people’s protest.”

He denied that the protest was aimed at keeping tourists away from Jamaica. “There is really no reason for any tourist not to come to Jamaica,” he said, “and we would encourage them to do so.”

Seaga admitted that inflation and massive devaluation of the Jamaican dollar have given many Jamaicans a reason to protest. In 1984, while there was no economic growth at all, the cost of living increased by 35%. Prices of imported goods, including gasoline and other fuels, have been raised to keep pace with the currency devaluation.

Seaga said the devaluation and the recession are unavoidable results of an austerity program needed to restructure the economy. He said the economy was left a shambles by the socialist policies of Michael Manley, the People’s National Party leader who was prime minister from 1972 through 1980.

Manley, however, contends that the devaluation and austerity measures are part of a conservative economic policy that is being carried out by Seaga’s Jamaica Labor Party at the expense of the poor majority.

“The people can bear no further increase in the cost of living,” Manley said in a statement after the recent demonstrations. “More demonstrations are inevitable if the government continues to impose intolerable burdens with callous disregard for the plight of the poor.”

Tourism Minister Hugh Hart warned on Jamaican television and radio that any new demonstrations “would be suicidal for the country.”

“If there are other demonstrations,” Hart went on, “then that is exactly what the foreign press are waiting for, and the entire stability of the country as far as tourism is concerned will be very seriously undermined.

“And that will be disastrous for the industry, the economy and the nation. It would mean that many, many people who are presently employed in the tourist industry would, as a direct result of those demonstrations, lose their jobs.”