Jamaica's Tourism Marketing Strategy Blasted

Jamaica's Tourism Marketing Strategy Blasted

Tourism officials are being criticized for what has been deemed a "piecemeal" approach to marketing the island's tourism product. The recent announcement by the tourism ministry of plans to segment the industry into several niche packages such as faith-based tourism, community-based tourism, sports tourism and heritage tourism have not found favor with world heritage scholar and consultant Dr Janice Lindsay, who insists this approach will not work.

"We're really going on a dangerous path when we fragment the thing and are trying to create those niches and sub-niches, because we don't need to do it and we don't have the money to do it," she argued in a recent interview with the Sunday Observer.

"You think we have the luxury of marketing all the different kinds of niches? We're fragmenting the thing too much, and we're not even working the fragments... it's not smart marketing," Lindsay added.

Dr Lindsay said the Government should market the local product as one entity with diverse elements, and push that as the total heritage tourism experience.

"Why not focus on the one thing that we can package and say, 'this is who we are?'," she asked. "Who we are is captured in our cultural heritage. Look at the wonderful things we have to share... That's the pitch, tell the people this is what we have and it continues to grow, it's evolving."

Dr Lindsay, who holds a PhD in World Heritage Studies from the University of Tsukuba in Japan, said as a people, Jamaicans tend to think of heritage as being 'lightweight', not realizing how much demand there is across the world for all things Jamaican.

"It's not business as usual when you talk about heritage tourism; you can't treat it the same way you treat mainstream tourism. It's a serious, serious business because it's not just now about economics, you have to think about balancing, how you're going to put people's lives, people's identity out there without destroying it," she said.

According to Dr Lindsay, where heritage tourism is concerned, Jamaica is the envy of many developed and developing countries, as "the spirit of community in our little country is vast".

Her call for more attention to be paid to selling Jamaica as a premier heritage destination is not new. Over the years, heritage tourism enthusiasts have called on successive administrations to push heritage tourism as a viable alternative to sun, sea and sand.

Successive governments have been criticized for not doing enough to develop the concept, especially on the island's south coast, since Jamaica is no longer unique for its sun, sea and sand.

News came recently that Jamaica almost missed its opportunity to have the Blue and John Crow mountains placed on the prestigious World Heritage Centre Listing because there was a financial setback in sending representatives to a crucial Paris meeting reviewing which sites across the world were to be added to the listing.