Jamaica rapped for not tapping into diaspora tourism
Published:Friday | June 11, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
WASHINGTON:
PATRICK BECKFORD, the chairman of the northeast region of Jamaica Diaspora in the United States, has criticised the Ministry of Tourism for its approach in the marketing of the country.
Beckford, who said the campaign to woo tourists to the island's shores was too skewed to non-natives, argued that enough was not being done to reach out to expatriate Jamaicans.
"The time is now to rebrand tourism," Beckford told The Gleaner.
He cited the staging of Champs 100 - the centenary celebration of Jamaica's most popular athletics even - in April as an example of bad marketing.
Beckford said marketing for the event was "a disaster".
"They could have packaged it and said, 'Come home to Jamaica and enjoy Champs 100'. Nothing was done to reach out to the diaspora. I have never seen an advertisement about it here. You read about it in the newspaper, but that is all.
"There was no vision, even though it was a unique and historical event and should have been used for tourism to bring Jamaicans home," Beckford said.
An estimated one million Jamaicans live in the US northeast, including New York, Virginia and New Jersey. Beckford told The Gleaner despite the fact that north of one million tourists visit Jamaica yearly, visitor spend would have been much greater if more Jamaicans were targeted to return home as visitors.
"We spend more money in Jamaica, man-for-man, than any of the tourists. When I go home to Falmouth, where I am from, I spend money at the local bar and just about everywhere.
"It is one of the things I see that is just wrong with our tourism product. The market is just too 1960s," Beckford said.
Perfect example
Beckford argued that the 2007 Cricket World Cup, which the Caribbean hosted, was a perfect example of what Jamaica should do to roll out the welcome mat to members of the diaspora.
"When they had World Cup cricket, what we did as a Trelawny community was to say we are not going to allow people to come and full up the place and we are not there.
"We had about 600 people for the Trelawny reunion and it just goes to show how many Jamaicans will come home if proper marketing is done," he said.
Trelawny hosted the opening ceremony for the World Cup and Beckford said many Jamaicans who came for the event took non-Jamaicans with them.
"There are a lot things that we can do in terms of advertising, if we were being engaged, but that is not done.
"We see this 'One Love' thing and we see white woman on the beach and now we are using Usain Bolt ... . Yes, Usain is popular and fabulous, but Jamaica is more than that. Take, for example, the Cockpit Country. When I tell people who are environmentally conscious about the Cockpit Country, that piques their interest," Beckford said.
He told The Gleaner that expatriates were "not saying, 'throw away what has been our bread and butter for years', but the bread and butter, just like what is happening in Jamaica now, is easily harmed because we are not engaged fully.
"All we ask is for us to be a part of the process," he said.
He said he was hoping to air his grouses at the biennial diaspora conference, which was scheduled for July. The conference, however, was postponed because of what the Government said were inadequate expressions of interest.
Beckford said although he was looking forward to the event, he had mixed feelings about its usefulness, as he was not convinced that the agenda had substantive issues close to the heart of the diaspora.
He said the diaspora would want to see Government change the way in which properties are being divested. He also said expatriates wanted to discuss with Government a framework which would allow them to be "equal partners" in Jamaica's affairs.