Jamaican Researcher

The Burgeoning of the Jamaican Tourism Industry during World War II

Pan American Airline

In 1914 (the commencement of World War I) the Honorable Marcus Garvey, Jamaican national hero and pan-Africanist, founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). His work was to continue until 1940, five years before the end of World War II. As a Jamaican, the coalescence of the growth in the back to Africa movement, the development of the two World Wars, and the burgeoning of the Jamaican tourism industry, in and around the same time period is very noteworthy. Jamaica’s tourism product quickly developed during a time of world instability and the Great Depression, as well as a massive movement by children of slaves, across the Americas, to return to their homeland.

It is within this context that Jamaica grew from a colony, which depended on sugar exports, as the major foreign exchange earner, to an independent country in 1962, with tourism surpassing the declining sugar product as a foreign exchange earner in the economy by 1965. Within 25 years of Marcus Garvey’s death, the political attraction of the back to Africa movement had been replaced with a new fervor for sovereignty and independent governance (at least in Jamaica). This fervor for was vividly captured in Tony Rebel’s music video posted below. Additionally, the Jamaican economy saw the coming to full maturity of the tourist industry, which ushered Jamaica’s development of a strong tertiary sector.

Frank Taylor, writing in Caribbean Sociology in the article: To Hell with Paradise, looks at the history of the Jamaican Tourist Industry, highlighting how it grew from a limited service, which was predominantly accessible to the wealthy, to a bustling trade, which actively competes for the average middle-income vacationer:

Resort Map

• Before 1930- No landing field in Jamaica. Jamaica as a destination was almost exclusively for the wealthy
• December 2, 1930- Pan American Airways (PAA), with four employees on staff, linked Jamaica to the outside world, which directly contributed to Jamaica’s emergence as a leading destination for the average middle income vacationer
• Before 1939- Hotels operated about 20 weeks per year
• 1939- World War II commenced
• 1940- Military started construction of an airport on the Palisadoes peninsula. Jamaican national hero, Hon. Marcus Garvey dies in London on June 10
• After 1940- the main mode of transportation for vacationers was by air , no longer by sea
• August 19, 1941- Dutch KLM landed its first air plane in Jamaica and introduced it as a vacation site in post World War II
• 1944- the Hotels Aid Law was passed and it gave numerous concessions for the construction of resort hotels. The Law also provided for customs duty waivers on the importation of building materials and various items of hotel equipment. It was this law that Jack Pringle, president of Montego Bay Hotel Association attributed the break neck speed with which this North Coast town (Montego Bay) developed in the post War era
• 1945- a regional rather than purely insular approach to tourism development was accepted/ appreciated. World War II ended
• After 1945- Port Antonio, Jamaica’s leading banana port and once the leading tourist resort, sank into the background as a travel destination, because it had no airfield. Montego Bay rose in preeminence, partly due to the World War II airstrip
• 1950- Hotels operated 32 weeks per year and the ‘Know Jamaica” Tour was launched, which brought over 1,000 travel agents and editors on visits between 1951 and 1953
• May 1952- British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) landed agents with the intent of promoting Jamaica as a summer site in the post World War II years
• 1954- Hotels operated 40 weeks per year. The Jamaican Government granted the creation of the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), to which membership was offered to most of the private interest groups involved in tourism–It was supported by annual grants from the government treasury, it was given special borrowing powers, which facilitated it maintaining its head office in Kingston, augmenting full time staff, and opening sales offices in New York, Miami, Chicago, and London. PAA introduced discounts and installment schemes to make vacationing more affordable for travelers.
• 1955- JTB was inaugurated and it set a goal to double Jamaica’s tourist business within five years, which it achieved. Jamaica is featured on the PAA calender. Jamaica is serviced by eight international airlines: PAA, KLM, Trans Canada Airlines, Delta, Avianca, Avensa, BOAC, and British West Indian Airways (BWIA)
• 1960- Jamaica surpassed 250,000 for annual tourist arrivals–15 years before, annual arrivals stood at just over 34,000. Tourism had ceased to be a one-season affair that it had been before the War–it became a year round commerce
• 1962- Jamaica got its independence from Great Britain. Hotels operated 52 weeks per year–the change from class to mass visitors resulted in a reorganization of the industry in the 1960s on a 12 month basis with two distinct economic time spans targeting class and mass vacationers respectively: Winter (December 16 to April 15) and Summer (April 16 to December 15)
• 1965- For the first time ever long stay visitors comprised the bulk of arrivals–which heralded the full maturity of the Industry. Tourism surpassed the declining sugar industry as a foreign exchange earner in the Jamaican economy.

“In the post World War II years, with the rise in air transport, came a dramatic shift in the centers of Jamaican tourism… If in the international perspective, the 1950s and 1960s were a veritable golden age of a global tourism boom, in that gilded era Jamaica’s North Coast was literally its gold coast, pulsating with tourism development. Among the Anglophone Caribbean countries, Jamaica was the acclaimed leader in establishing mass tourism… Allied to the post War surges in the numbers of Jamaican tourist arrivals was the mushrooming of the island’s tourism plant and infrastructure. So ebullient was the growth in capacity in the hotel industry that it outpaced the annual rate of growth in visitor arrivals. In 1950 Jamaica had 1,680 beds and in 1962 the number rose to 7,000 and a gross investment of some 20 million pounds. Between 1945 and 1962 the number of hotels in the island increased twofold.”

Jamaican Scenery

The support that was identified for the development of the tourism industry in Jamaica demonstrates that as a society and country we have the resources for national development. Further, the pace of growth of the tourism sector indicates that if the relevant stakeholders are willing we can make any sector/ industry successful. Of course we will require, as in the case of the tourism sector, the contribution of the Government, private sector, multinational corporations, and the Jamaican people. Marcus Garvey’s dream to return to Africa was not realised, but Jamaica did transition to a sovereign country, having the opportunity to empower its people, improve their social condition, and determine their future. Tourism contributed to national development–it must now be harnessed for parochial and local development.