By Adrian Frater, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
TOURISM INTERESTS in Montego Bay want greater attention to be paid to the city's tourism product and its supporting structure as a first step towards setting the stage for the industry to realise its fullest potential.
Speaking at the recent Gleaner's Editors Forum in Montego Bay, city officials bemoaned the state of the city's infrastructure, the shortage of physical amenities and general failure of government to reinvest in the city.
"It is time the administration of this country wake up and understand that we are in business to make money and that this is where our bread and butter is," said cruise-shipping executive Lee Bailey. "Tourism is no longer a laughing matter... it is serious business and there is nothing fragile about it, it is the people that make it fragile."
In supporting Mr. Bailey's call, president of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce, Mark Kerr-Jarrett, re-emphasised that tourism is the nation's greatest foreign exchange earner, adding that government need to reinvest in the nation's tourism.
"Only a fool does not reinvest the majority of their funds into their highest revenue earner in order to grow it and increase it," Mr. Kerr-Jarrett stated. "The revenue is from here and is being spread around elsewhere and people are wondering why the product is deteriorating, and it's a very, very simple piece of analysis."
While batting for greater attention to tourism, Mr. Kerr-Jarrett does not want locals to be left out of the equation. According to him, the country should be fixed up for Jamaicans so that they, too, may have an appreciation for what we have and not seek to destroy it.
"We have marketed tourism wrong, we have told the Jamaicans that they are not worth the effort to fix up the country for and that they should stay over there and behave themselves and we are fixing up the nation for the tourists," said Mr. Kerr-Jarrett. "We should fix up the nation for the Jamaicans and invite foreigners to come and visit our home, and in that way we have ownership and we will treat the land with respect."
Mr. Edmund Bartlett, the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) spokesman on tourism, also spoke about the shoddy state of the physical surroundings of Montego Bay. According to him, whatever we are making and selling is what we are seeing when we move around the city.
"When we walk around in Montego Bay, we don't like what we see," said Mr. Bartlett, who alluded to the fact that the city is dirty, decrepit and unhealthy. "I would like to ask the Minister (Dr. Wykeham McNeill, the junior minister in the Ministry of Tourism) what is the immediate plan for the cleaning up of the resort area."
After he had outlined some of the plans government has for tourism, Dr. McNeill was extended an open invitation to operate out of Montego Bay for at least six months of the year. According to Mr. Bailey, who made the proposal, it would give the Minister a first-hand experience of what is happening in tourism
"I demand this as a citizen that the Minister comes to Montego Bay, which is the hub, and experience six months with us down here and to see what is happening," said Mr. Bailey. "I want the Minister to know that this is the gateway to 85 per cent of the tourists coming to Jamaica."
