Garwin Davis, Assistant News Editor
CARNIVAL Cruise Line has no intention of shouldering the blame for events which led to the recent shutting down of the renowned Dunn's River Falls.
Officials there said they never gave instructions that their passengers should not visit the craft market.
However, the cruise line had been heavily criticised by local business interests, including tourism officials, for allegedly issuing the directive to the St. Ann Development Company (SADCo), a subsidiary of the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and operators of Dunn's River Falls. It also led to a massive protest at the gates of the popular attraction by craft vendors. SADCo officials said last week that they were instructed by the cruise director from the Carnival vessel, Paradise, not to send passengers into the Dunn's River Craft market for fear of harassment.
"We were instructed not to send visitors from the ship to the craft market," Leon Gordon, chairman of SADCo, had said. He said the directive was due mainly to the harassment of visitors to the craft market. The harassment, he noted, was not restricted to only cruise passengers. "We get frequent complaints also from tour operators," Mr. Gordon added.
Reacting in anger, craft traders blocked the main gate to the property, forcing a closing down of ticket sales and which resulted in heavy losses in revenue for the operators. The incident, witnessed by scores of visitors, was seen by tourism officials as "another strike against the image of the island as a tourist destination."
However, Brendan Corrigan, senior vice-president of operations at Carnival Cruise Line told The Sunday Gleaner last week that he was not aware of any such instruction being given by the cruise line to the management of Dunn's River Falls. His remarks were echoed by another senior official who said, "We are very surprised people could be saying those things but no we gave no such instructions," he said. "Yes we have had complaints about the craft market but that's not the way we do things."
Devon Mitchell, president of the Dunn's River Craft Market, said he was not surprised that the directive didn't come from the cruise ship, noting that "this only goes to show how far they will go to get craft vendors out of Dunn's River. We have been saying all along that management acted on their own and nobody would believe us," he said. "Mr. Gordon in a meeting told us that they have a lot of new plans for the attraction and who can swim should swim and who cannot will drown."
But Mr. Gordon told The Sunday Gleaner that his statements were taken out of context. He also has an unlikely ally in Michelle Brown, craft trader. According to her, the SADCo chairman was misled into believing the directive had come from the cruise line and should not be blamed.
"Mr. Gordon did not instruct visitors not to go to the craft market and only came on the scene after the protest had started. The person to blame is manager Merle Wilson who made the call."
Ms. Wilson had told The Sunday Gleaner that she "was following instructions from the cruise line."
Meanwhile, President of the St. Ann Chamber of Commerce Andrew Grant, said it was unfortunate that misinformation could have led to such a serious conflict, which he said could only further tarnish the image of the country.
Dr. Wykeham McNeill, State Minister in the Ministry of Tourism agreed. "What took place should never have happened and I only hope everyone will learn from this. Any concerns being expressed by a cruise line should be passed on to my office to be dealt with...what took place with the craft traders should never have been handled like that."
