Neither the protracted and crippling intervention of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic nor the country’s highly publicized vulnerability to crime would appear to have diminished the international appetite for Jamaica as a favoured tourism haven.
And as the island last week welcomed its millionth guest for 2022, an astonishing feat for a country which, a few months ago, had been reflecting ruefully on the wider socio-economic effects of the pandemic across most sectors of the society, last Sunday’s Jamaica Gleaner (Jamaica’s tourism sector rebounds, not hurt by crime: Curtis Williams) was declaring that the country, its reputation as “one of the Caribbean islands with the highest murder rates,” notwithstanding, had “successfully navigated the risk to its brand and remains a safe destination for its visitors.”