By Roy Sanford, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE NUMBER of murders in St. James, especially in the Montego Bay area, has surged above last year's high, spreading concern among tourism officials that it could have long-term effects on the second city's tourism business.
On Wednesday, Decem-ber 10, the number of cruise ship visitors to the city hit a record high 300,000 since January, compared to 170,000 for the same period last year.
However, the number of murders has rocketed to 104 so far this year, surpassing the 83 at this time last year.
"We just cannot continue with this high level of murders," Godfrey Dyer, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, told The Gleaner yesterday.
The latest fatality was Gilbert Grant, who was shot dead by unknown assailants on King Street, Montego Bay, around 3:55 yesterday morning He was the third person to have died violently in the city over the Christmas holidays.
Mr. Dyer said the murders are not going to have an immediate effect on the on-going tourist season. "However every other murder exposes us more and we should see to it that it stops," he said.
David Lindo, chairman of the Cruise Ship Committee of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said crime was the major problem the city's tourism industry faces.
"We are constantly doing damage control," he told The Gleaner yesterday. "If our crime rate was manageable our tourism industry would be far more advanced."
He, too, agreed that the record high crime rate was not going to have a significant short-term impact on the on-going winter season. "But what it is doing is that it is stopping us from achieving the growth we could achieve," he said.
Councillor Noel Donaldson, Mayor of Montego Bay, said that the increased murder rate was 'a cause for great concern'.
"It is not beneficial for Montego Bay, the tourism capital, to see such an explosion in the rate of murders," he said yesterday. "In our interest, and certainly in the interest of tourism, we need to do whatever we can to bring it under control."
Mayor Donaldson is proposing dispute resolution as a form of combating the murder surge. "The police report that most of our murders are committed because of domestic disputes," he said. "We are not resolving our differences in a mature manner and that is why I point to dispute resolution as something we should focus on."
