Jamaica’s resort towns are ringed by poverty, according to a nationwide poverty map launched by the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) recently.

The PIOJ has bestowed upon the garden parish of Jamaica, St Ann, the dubious distinction of being the poorest parish in Jamaica, with St James, home of our tourism Mecca, Montego Bay, a close second.

The mind-boggling statistics warrant serious analysis by the nation if tourism is to remain as a pillar of our economy.

St Ann has fourteen of the poorest communities in the country despite its capital, the resort town of Ocho Rios
being home to one of the top natural attractions in the world, Dunn’s River Falls.

Is this the impact of billions of dollars in visitor spending and further billions in investment by the Government on infrastructure and advertising? This is a national disgrace, will somebody now believe the poor craft vendors, who have been begging for a little piece of the pie for decades.

The PIOJ report is not about the benefits of all-inclusives or employment per se but rather a shameful scenario where our resort towns are allowed to be surrounded by poverty. The maps showed the highest levels of poverty in the parishes of Manchester, St Thomas, St Ann, Trelawny, Portland and south St James.

The project was funded by the Inter- American Development Bank under the Poverty Monitoring and Social Policy Analysis Programme. Speaking at the launch, Water and Housing Minister, Dr Horace Chang said the map is a critical aid to government in designing intervention programmes
to alleviate poverty

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