Jamaica Tourism Ministry Launches Major Ocho Rios Cleanup

Jamaica Tourism Ministry Launches Major Ocho Rios Cleanup
By Brian Major

Jamaica’s tourism ministry has begun a major cleanup project in the island’s primary resort town of Ocho Rios this week following growing complaints from tourism stakeholders and businesses that the town’s “filthy and unsightly” streets and unchecked visitor harassment has led to a steep decline in cruise ship arrivals.

Work crews were photographed cleaning a section of the Ocho Rios Development Road on Thursday. News of the cleanup comes as Jamaica reported that it hosted 2.09 million visitors netting $1.5 billion for Jan. 1 to Aug. 31 period this year.

A Jamaica Tourism Product Development Company (TPDC) spokesman said work began the previous day as a precursor to “full implementation” of an $80 million beautification plan announced earlier by Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s minister of tourism.

The cleanup work will include trimming of trees and hedges along main roads, repair of sidewalks throughout town, and cleaning of street drains. At stakeholders’ meeting for tourism last week, business leaders complained that the town’s unpaved sidewalks, dirty drains and pervasive potholes needed “urgent work,” according to a Jamaica Observer report.

In a statement, Bartlett said Ocho Rios was “losing some of its special appeal” due to “the poor state of the drains, improper solid waste disposal and the gradual deterioration of infrastructure.”

A maintenance program will begin following completion of the clean-up project, he said. Cruise arrivals in Ocho Rios totaled nearly 870,000 passengers in 2006 but have since declined to fewer than 400,000 passengers per year, according to tourism officials.

Jamaica also opened up a major new cruise port in Falmouth, which has overtaken Ochos Rios as Jamaica’s top port of call for cruises, in large part because two of the world’s largest ships, Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, visit the port.

At Ocho Rios’ Island Village shopping and entertainment complex, a major draw for cruise passengers, half of the 35 shops have closed, according to press reports.