The West End section of the resort town of Negril, regarded at Jamaica’s live Reggae mecca and which is home to the legendary Rick’s Café, has faced a steady decline in terms of tourist bookings over the years, and has reached such a scale and scope that approximately 2000 rooms there are presently guestless.
“Right now we have almost 2,000 empty rooms in the West End you know, so what we’re trying to do is to kind of revamp the whole action and activity you know because we are far behind, unlike the beach road side, you know everything is happening on that side,” businessman, Eaton Owens told Negril Times in an interview.
Owens explained that much of West End’s decline, which has resulted in numerous small hotels shuttering their doors, began with the deterioration of the West End roadway during the placement of sewage lines back in the 1990s.
“Over the years, from in the beginning of the hippie time, West End Road was the place where people use to come and lay back. This is where the ‘Jamaica No Problem’ idea comes from. But when they start to run the sewage line through, everything took a nose-dive,” he explained.
While urging governmental bodies to participate in the area’s resurgence and economic growth, Owens said the first step had been taken with the conceptualizing of the Negril Food Festival by himself and a cadre of other Negril-based micro and small business owners to highlight the untapped potential of the West End.
In emphasizing his point, Owens asserted that there is a great need for increased efforts from the relevant authorities such as the Jamaica Tourist Board, to help in promoting the West End, which, with its rich cultural history and potential as a tourist hotspot, requires greater comprehensive marketing strategies, to draw attention to the area’s unique offerings.
“I think there’s not enough marketing dollars tourism dollars going into marketing of the West End… So, it’s all left to us as small business people you know, to do our little bits and parts to bring back such livelihood and liveliness you know back into the space. Things will get back into full swing if we keep doing what we’re doing, and this (Negril Food Festival), is the first thing we are doing to kind of bring back some life into the space,” he said.
Back in December 2018, President of the Negril Entertainment Association, Ryan Morrison, had argued that small hotels on Negril West End owned by residents from the community, had been continuously experiencing low occupancy, even as tourism arrivals to the island increase.
Morrison who is also a former president of the Hanover Chamber of Commerce, had said many of the hoteliers were unable to compete, as they had not become versed in information technology or the internet and this has caused them to be left behind.
He said many of their children have migrated and so these hoteliers were simultaneously grappling with a lack of continuity.
“While they were building these rooms, the mental capacity never changed and now the whole tourism sector changed. Some of them invested in their children who went away and didn’t come back to put back in the industry. So now, the owners or the parents, are at a disadvantage, because the technology and the concept of tourism has left them behind. So it doesn’t matter how great the season sound, it does not necessarily translate to good business on the West End,” Morrison had said.
Morrison had also pointed out that the hotels which tend to do well tend on the West End, were those which were owned by overseas investors who are well resourced and versed in technology with trained and experienced hospitality and tourism managers.
