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Culture versus tourism
LLOYD B SMITH
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
IS the Jamaican culture being fully utilised by the tourism industry? Is our culture in sync with the tourism product? Have our cultural practices been bastardised to accommodate foreign tastes? There has been glib talk about introducing and developing cultural tourism, but has enough been done to make this a profitable reality?
When I was growing up in Montego Bay, Jamaican black natives were not allowed to enter hotels unless they worked there; and a special back-door entrance was usually created for them. Indeed, there was a hotel that allegedly had a black gate and a white gate! The world-famous Doctor's Cave Beach was off limits to most locals, and resort properties operated in splendid isolation. Thank God, much of this has changed although there are still remnants of ostracism and double standards meted out to blacks. Just last weekend, as I was entering a well-known establishment in Negril, a black woman walked by me in a huff, declaring that she would never go back to that place because she had been treated in a discourteous manner. "Why dem treat us so, hmm? It's because we are black," she shouted as she and her party departed the premises in high dudgeon.
GANJA... it is no secret that many tourists come to Jamaica for the good stuff
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Ironically, still intrinsic in our culture is the perception that "anything black nuh good". So our own black brothers and sisters treat us as second-class citizens when we become "tourists". Take it from me, if you want to be treated royally, "twang" your way through while on property. Once you use an American accent, you will be assured five-star treatment. "Yeah mon!" Jamaica, no problem. I recall once on St James's Street in the second city, a young Jamaican man escorting a group of tourists across the road, stopping traffic in the process. Shortly after, an elderly woman was attempting to cross that same busy thoroughfare, so I shouted to him, "Help the old lady, nuh man!" He just hissed his teeth and raced after the tourists.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz2FR53O2lV
LLOYD B SMITH
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
IS the Jamaican culture being fully utilised by the tourism industry? Is our culture in sync with the tourism product? Have our cultural practices been bastardised to accommodate foreign tastes? There has been glib talk about introducing and developing cultural tourism, but has enough been done to make this a profitable reality?
When I was growing up in Montego Bay, Jamaican black natives were not allowed to enter hotels unless they worked there; and a special back-door entrance was usually created for them. Indeed, there was a hotel that allegedly had a black gate and a white gate! The world-famous Doctor's Cave Beach was off limits to most locals, and resort properties operated in splendid isolation. Thank God, much of this has changed although there are still remnants of ostracism and double standards meted out to blacks. Just last weekend, as I was entering a well-known establishment in Negril, a black woman walked by me in a huff, declaring that she would never go back to that place because she had been treated in a discourteous manner. "Why dem treat us so, hmm? It's because we are black," she shouted as she and her party departed the premises in high dudgeon.
GANJA... it is no secret that many tourists come to Jamaica for the good stuff
1/1
Ironically, still intrinsic in our culture is the perception that "anything black nuh good". So our own black brothers and sisters treat us as second-class citizens when we become "tourists". Take it from me, if you want to be treated royally, "twang" your way through while on property. Once you use an American accent, you will be assured five-star treatment. "Yeah mon!" Jamaica, no problem. I recall once on St James's Street in the second city, a young Jamaican man escorting a group of tourists across the road, stopping traffic in the process. Shortly after, an elderly woman was attempting to cross that same busy thoroughfare, so I shouted to him, "Help the old lady, nuh man!" He just hissed his teeth and raced after the tourists.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz2FR53O2lV