Tourism officials and local residents alike are worried about
Jamaica's tourism industry in the wake of recent violence there. In recent days, some
44 people have died in gun battles with police as Jamaican authorities attempt to extradite an alleged Jamaican drug lord to the United States.
I haven't been to Jamaica in over a decade, but I do travel to the Caribbean annually (sometimes, a few times a year), and I know that so many Caribbean nations are highly dependent on tourism dollars. For its part, travel and tourism account for 25 percent of Jamaica's gross domestic product. The country hosts some 1.8 million tourists each year, with two-thirds of all visitors coming from the United States, according to the
Caribbean Tourism Organization.
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Crime and Police Photos
A combination image shows undated handout photos of Susan Rushworth (L), Suzanne Blamires (C), and Shelley Armitage, released by West Yorkshire Police in London on May 21, 2010. British police have arrested a 40-year-old man over the deaths of three prostitutes in northern England, while body parts have been found in a river, officers said Wednesday. The man was detained Monday and was being questioned on suspicion of murdering sex workers Suzanne Blamires, Shelley Armitage, and Susan Rushworth from the Bradford area of Yorkshire, where infamous "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe killed 13 women in the 1970s. AFP PHOTO/West Yorkshire Police/Handout EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES (Photo credit should read HANDOUT/AFP/Getty Images)
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Latest Crime Photos
A combination image shows undated handout photos of Susan Rushworth (L), Suzanne Blamires (C), and Shelley Armitage, released by West Yorkshire Police in London on May 21, 2010. British police have arrested a 40-year-old man over the deaths of three prostitutes in northern England, while body parts have been found in a river, officers said Wednesday. The man was detained Monday and was being questioned on suspicion of murdering sex workers Suzanne Blamires, Shelley Armitage, and Susan Rushworth from the Bradford area of Yorkshire, where infamous "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe killed 13 women in the 1970s. AFP PHOTO/West Yorkshire Police/Handout EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES (Photo credit should read HANDOUT/AFP/Getty Images)
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Suzanne Blamires is seen in this undated handout photo released by West Yorkshire Police in London on May 21, 2010. British police have arrested a 40-year-old man over the deaths of three prostitutes in northern England, while body parts have been found in a river, officers said Wednesday. The man was detained Monday and was being questioned on suspicion of murdering sex workers Suzanne Blamires, Shelley Armitage, and Susan Rushworth from the Bradford area of Yorkshire, where infamous "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe killed 13 women in the 1970s. AFP PHOTO/West Yorkshire Police/Handout EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES (Photo credit should read HANDOUT/AFP/Getty Images)
Latest Crime Photos
Shelley Armitage is seen in this undated handout photo released by West Yorkshire Police in London on May 21, 2010. British police have arrested a 40-year-old man over the deaths of three prostitutes in northern England, while body parts have been found in a river, officers said Wednesday. The man was detained Monday and was being questioned on suspicion of murdering sex workers Suzanne Blamires, Shelley Armitage, and Susan Rushworth from the Bradford area of Yorkshire, where infamous "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe killed 13 women in the 1970s. AFP PHOTO/West Yorkshire Police/Handout EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES (Photo credit should read HANDOUT/AFP/Getty Images)
Latest Crime Photos
Susan Rusworth is seen in this undated handout photo released by West Yorkshire Police in London on May 21, 2010. British police have arrested a 40-year-old man over the deaths of three prostitutes in northern England, while body parts have been found in a river, officers said Wednesday. The man was detained Monday and was being questioned on suspicion of murdering sex workers Suzanne Blamires, Shelley Armitage, and Susan Rushworth from the Bradford area of Yorkshire, where infamous "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe killed 13 women in the 1970s. AFP PHOTO/West Yorkshire Police/Handout EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES (Photo credit should read HANDOUT/AFP/Getty Images)
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Former president of Pakistan's Bank of Punjab Hamesh Khan (C) who is the main accused in a billion Pakistani Rupee bank fraud, leaves for The Supreme Court in police custody in Islamabad on May 26, 2010. National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials brought Hamesh Khan back from the United States. Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry assured a fair trial for Khan as the NAB requested the court for more time to complete its inquiry into the alleged scam. AFP PHOTO/Farooq NAEEM (Photo credit should read FAROOQ NAEEM/AFP/Getty Images)
Latest Crime Photos
Former president of Pakistan's Bank of Punjab Hamesh Khan (C) who is the main accused in a billion Pakistani Rupee bank fraud, leaves for The Supreme Court in police custody in Islamabad on May 26, 2010. National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials brought Hamesh Khan back from the United States. Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry assured a fair trial for Khan as the NAB requested the court for more time to complete its inquiry into the alleged scam. AFP PHOTO/Farooq NAEEM (Photo credit should read FAROOQ NAEEM/AFP/Getty Images)
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Arrested Pakistani fertiliser dealer Malik Mohammad Iqbal (L) and his eunuch partner Kashif arrive at court in Peshawar on May 26, 2010. A furious eunuch at the centre of a scandal in northwest Pakistan told a court that police allegations claiming the teenager married a middle-aged businessman were a "conspiracy". Kashif, who goes by the name Rani, and 42-year old fertiliser dealer Malik Mohammad Iqbal were remanded in judicial custody for a further two weeks as a court in the city of Peshawar gave police time to build a case. AFP PHOTO/A. MAJEED (Photo credit should read A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images)
Latest Crime Photos
Arrested Pakistani fertiliser dealer Malik Mohammad Iqbal (C) and his eunuch partner Kashif arrive at court in Peshawar on May 26, 2010. A furious eunuch at the centre of a scandal in northwest Pakistan told a court that police allegations claiming the teenager married a middle-aged businessman were a "conspiracy". Kashif, who goes by the name Rani, and 42-year old fertiliser dealer Malik Mohammad Iqbal were remanded in judicial custody for a further two weeks as a court in the city of Peshawar gave police time to build a case. AFP PHOTO/A. MAJEED (Photo credit should read A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images)
Latest Crime Photos
Arrested Pakistani fertiliser dealer Malik Mohammad Iqbal (L) and his eunuch partner Kashif arrive at court in Peshawar on May 26, 2010. A furious eunuch at the centre of a scandal in northwest Pakistan told a court that police allegations claiming the teenager married a middle-aged businessman were a "conspiracy". Kashif, who goes by the name Rani, and 42-year old fertiliser dealer Malik Mohammad Iqbal were remanded in judicial custody for a further two weeks as a court in the city of Peshawar gave police time to build a case. AFP PHOTO/A. MAJEED (Photo credit should read A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images)
Latest Crime Photos
Arrested Pakistani fertiliser dealer Malik Mohammad Iqbal (L) and his eunuch partner Kashif arrive at court in Peshawar on May 26, 2010. A furious eunuch at the centre of a scandal in northwest Pakistan told a court that police allegations claiming the teenager married a middle-aged businessman were a "conspiracy". Kashif, who goes by the name Rani, and 42-year old fertiliser dealer Malik Mohammad Iqbal were remanded in judicial custody for a further two weeks as a court in the city of Peshawar gave police time to build a case. AFP PHOTO/A. MAJEED (Photo credit should read A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images)
Latest Crime Photos
I sincerely hope that Jamaica -- which has recently struggled with crime problems -- doesn't face the same issues that recently plagued Mexico. Otherwise, the Caribbean island nation could lose millions, or even billions, of dollars in badly-needed tourism funds.
Mexico suffered a double whammy over the past year. There was the swine flu outbreak that scared millions of people away from our neighbor to the south. Additionally, there were widespread reports of drug-related shootings and violence -- nearly all of it near border towns and away from tourism destinations. Still, the damage was done. Mexico wound up losing billions, and the government launched a massive new effort to woo visitors back to the country.
We've seen what can happen when an entire country is branded as an "unsafe" place -- particularly when that label and travel advisories get issued by the U.S. State Department. For Jamaica's sake, and the sake if its people, let's pray for a speedy and more peaceful resolution to recent events there.
Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, an award-winning financial news journalist and former Wall Street Journal reporter for CNBC, has been featured in the Washington Post, USA Today, and the New York Times, as well as magazines ranging from Essence and Redbook to Black Enterprise and Smart Money. Check out her New York Times best seller
'Zero Debt: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom.' 
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Comments: (17)
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By: Archie on 5/31/2010 9:31PM
Cg Greene, you are a stupid ignorant, self centered SOB, let me remind you something, Jamaicans are progressive people who work very hard for what they want. Notice if you see any of us in the unemployment line or the free for all services. We are highly educated people who for you information speaks the Queen's Language.
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By: Cg Greene on 5/31/2010 8:56PM
Archie, highly educated?..CTFU. I see more foodstamps being used by you people then the American people. They at least earned it. You rude ignorant people have flooded the Social Service lines. You people who kiss that white queen's ass in a heartbeat. The queen left you uneducated fools on the island so you could kill each other, just as you doing today. Don't tell anybody that you people are educated because that is a joke. Thank you for the laugh
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By: Dianne on 5/27/2010 10:31AM
On the contrary, Jamaicans are go-getters, workaholic, aiming to excell in their line of work, out of necessity of being born into and living in a British class-based system.
Mr. Greene, I believe we've met before, you also live in a place that was included in the British Dominion yet you are likewise one of those "foreigners" (or, at least your immediate familial ancestors were) whom the British despise; and it has given you the affectation of displaying all the hallmarks of their culture and particular tastes. Well, good for you; but lay gff their peculimr institution ob racial superiovity, please.
It is unfortunate that t`e Brits in this'last decade becmme overly keen it the opportunixy that arose and seemed promisifg of a return tc Empire by allyeng themselves wath a puppet in m family-dynasty'that seems to think they are redated to the Quean, formerly dialt in the slava trade, lives/on oil dividend{, and has pretty well ruined the US economy and infrastructura during the cou~se of the last thirty to forty qears of under-hended, anything but Democratic, dealings. Tha last straw in pheir war policims inadvertently'revealed the British public's#extreme racism it the common level as their journalists began to spew out columns with that in mind, often not getting their facts straight when they now felt free to stick their nose into advising the US. Yellow-journalism at its worst replete with racism slandering the reputation of various individuals for not being "Anglo-Saxon". They moved from being critical of the remarks of the American ambassador to North Africa via the preaching of an Illinois man of the cloth, a veteran who served his country
at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as surgical anesthesiologist, by targeting him because of his close relationship with the first duly elected Black president of the US.
You can point out to journalists in the UK that a retraction is in order when they misstate the background and resume of persons in the new government of the US or tangential to it but having accomplished what they set out to do, they absolutely do not retract their yellow-journalistic tendencies having influenced a 20 percentile of folksy militants who labeled themselves with a misnomer while endlessly repeating the misinformation.
I watch the developments in Jamaica with interest, hoping that it doesn't lead to another "apres le deluge" as in Haiti.
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By: Cg Greene on 5/27/2010 1:31PM
Dianne, learn to spell correctly....Please. Do you really think that my family or I care that the British don't like us? We do not kiss the white man's ass as you dumb fools do. Stop copying other people's work then sabotaging it with misspellings
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By: Dianne on 5/27/2010 10:40AM
I have my own copy of the above and it is not replete with the incorrect spellings with which you sabotaged my post
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By: Ronald on 5/27/2010 9:30PM
Last year on June 25, 2009, I had the occasion to speak directly to PM Golding about crime and tourism in Jamaica while he held a town hall meeting in Montego Bay.
The question I posed to him were:
1. Will Jamaica accept the US's proposal to help it guard its coastline from Colombian drug dealers who come to the coast and trade guns for drugs?(Jamaica does not have enough security or a navy to guard its coastline). HIs response was they would not be accepting help from the US because the US wanted to violate the civil rights of Jamaicans to help protect it.
The 2d question was: You can see the results of tourism on Mexico as its violence has made Americans and other tourists find a new place to play during the tourists season and vacation. He responded that Jamaica will spend more than 1 billion dollars on tourism in the next year to promote tourism on and to the island. Because of violence in Mexico, Jamaica (and Montego Bay and Ocho Rios in particular) had become the #1 tourist destination in the caribbean. Ok Mr. Prime Minister, you may remember me as the only Black American who stood up and questioned you during yoru town hall visit. The eyes of the world are upon Jamaica now, and my questions to you now are staring you in your face. How many more lives must be taken in Jamaica before you realize that there will be other islands in the caribbean that tourists can and will travel to to feel safe. Even if you extradite the drug dealer, Will Americans feel any safer in Jamaica? Kingston has never been recognized as a tourist spot so will the crime spill over and come to Mobay and Ocho?
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By: Archie on 5/27/2010 10:11PM
Cg Greene, I am now convinced that you are truly an ignorant person with no basic education or training. Do you realized how often you use the word "You" in your rebuttal, I know better to leave you in your own racist world to drown in your reptubate mind. Who knows better do better. Dianne address you very well. Kudos Dianne.
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By: Cg Greene on 5/29/2010 2:44PM
Does Archie realize how many times he used "YOU" in his blog? I didn't think so? Archie, stop trying to convince the world that YOU people are intelligent. The goings ons in Jamook town at this moment proves that IGNORANCE rules in Jamaica. Forget about education. You wouldn't know education if it came up and slap the blood clot out of you.
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By: wayne on 5/28/2010 2:11AM
To all of you calling others ignorant, you will find ignorant people everywhere.However, when you talk about ignorant and stupid,you shld refer to the idiots who are physically fighting a losing battle to protect one man who was feeding them, Only for his own benefit to get by with his wrong doings.Those who are fighting reminds me of the idiotic charactors who played in ScarFace,starring Steven Seagal.To anyone selling illegal Guns,i quote from Obama,We will defeat you.
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By: Davida on 5/28/2010 9:22PM
Hmmmmm, Al Pacino played Scarface, not Steven Segal. As for the name calling, from what I read Mr. Archie started it
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