JHTA: J’cans should have access to beaches

WESTERN BUREAU:

Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) President O’Brian Heron is supporting the call for Jamaicans to have unencumbered access to the island’s beaches and coastline.

In a brief interview with The Gleaner following last week’s JHTA’s annual general meeting in Montego Bay, St James, Heron mirrored the position taken by thee Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JABBEM), which is testing the matter in the courts.

The first-term president described the matter as deeply emotional.

“As a resident Montegonian, born and raised here, beaches are personal to me. We believe, as an association, that Jamaicans should have rights to the beach and should have access to the beach,” said Heron.

“I know the Government continues to work through what that access looks like within legislation. As an association, we are also focusing as well on having the dialogue as to what that would look like, and that really is my comment on that matter at the moment,” he added.

Heron comment comes several days after JaBBEM called for Jamaicans to lobby the Government to repeal and replace the Beach Control Act of 1956, on the grounds that the current issue of restricted beach access is indicative of plantation tourism, or tourism that benefits foreigners at the expense of locals.

JaBBEM had previously stated that only 2.8 miles of Jamaica’s 494 miles of shoreline, or less than one per cent of the coastline, are accessible to the general public. That has been one of several points of contention in the ongoing discussion about public access to beaches that have reportedly been sold to private investors.

In June this year, the JHTA’s immediate past president Christopher Jarrett said that while visitors and locals alike should be able to access Jamaica’s beaches, that access should be managed in a way that protects Jamaicans, tourists, and the country’s coastline.

However, in speaking on the subject of locals’ access to Jamaica’s general tourism market, Heron told The Gleaner that Jamaicans have never been excluded from the nation’s tourism offerings.

“Our local citizens have always been part of the dialogue, and have been part and parcel of everything we do,” he said. “I believe our product is available to Jamaicans and remains available to Jamaicans.”

“I know hotels that have a number of local guests who do ‘staycations,’ who find that there are opportunities to really experience everything Jamaica has to offer and spend their times in our hotels, whether it is with their family or with their spouses. I do not see that there is no opportunity for locals to experience Jamaica,” he added.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com