Misplaced focus from Caribbean Leader?

Once again I draw your attention to a news article spotted in a leading Caribbean print medium.
Jamaica Gleaner - Golding not satisfied - News - Monday | January 10, 2011

Is the Jamaican Prime Minister's focus misplaced? You decide. While I fully appreciate the underlying gist of the Prime Minister’s observation, I would disagree with his position that Jamaica does not have enough attractions. Admittedly, the country must address quality of product and service at some attractions. 

Focus on human and cultural resources

Prime Minister Golding acknowledged that it is the Jamaican people, and culture that create the country’s “mystique”. The Honourable Prime Minister is absolutely correct! Jamaica should therefore focus on these two important resources – human and cultural – to strengthen its position in tourism.

Look to the legacy of the multiplicity of races that shaped the island motto, ‘out of many, one people’. Look to the marketability of the country’s dynamic and evolving heritage. Look to local communities for a distinctive Jamaican ‘experience’. It is imperative to make the linkages in policy and development planning. Only recently, as seen in a previous entry, the Jamaica Social Investment Fund and the World Bank signed an agreement for the advancement of community-based tourism in rural Jamaica. This is the type of initiative that should address the PM’s concerns about satisfying the visitor.

Resort towns enjoy greatest tourism activity in Jamaica. However, authentic heritage experiences are concentrated in the country's rural communities. Resort map extracted from the Ministry of Tourism's, Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism Development (Compact Disc, 2002).

Jamaica must promote a distinctive cultural heritage spectrum as part of its tourism marketing campaign. The heritage spectrum is an overlapping and holistic concept. It recognizes that there are limitless components that make up the heritage experience, and as such it is not recommended that heritage be cast in a box or defined and marketed along a single line. Heritage is encompassing. It is tangible and intangible; natural and cultural; urban and rural. It celebrates then, now, and the future. My humble opinion - Jamaica should focus its attention and resources on developing its 'God-given' assets.

The Accompong maroon museum in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica is among several cultural landmarks in need of development.

Wrong focus

Small islands do not need a myriad of attractions. We must think about the  already precarious environmental  vulnerabilities these countries face, and their infrastructural capacity to adequately facilitate numerous man-made facilities. Let us also be mindful that man-made attractions won’t give small islands a competitive edge in the global tourism market. These are experiences that are offered in every other destination!

Finally, islands should encourage and facilitate local investment to develop existing heritage sites and attractions, as well as cultural/indigenous communities. It is not particularly encouraging when the Jamaican Prime Minister’s charge for cultural investment is directed at the international market.