While Jamaica, one of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) leading tourism destinations, has frequently made international headlines as a place where tourists are vulnerable to harassment and even sexual assault by hotel staff, a Jamaica Gleaner story earlier this week is reporting that these days, it is staff members who are increasingly reporting instances of sexual harassment by guests, at some of the country’s “top hotels”.
Equally worrying, is the assertion in the Gleaner story regarding what would appear to be a practice of ‘killing’ many of the incidents of sexual harassment, with staff reportedly being threatened with dismissal should they speak out about their ordeals.
In a country where tourism is a major part of the engine room that ‘fires’ the country’s economy, the notion that all is not well in terms of the service-driven relationship between staff and guests at hotels in Jamaica has triggered the attention of the island’s Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, who, the Gleaner says, has undertaken to tackle the problem through the publication of a Guide Book for the sector later this year. Even then, however, enforcement could be a challenge in the face of what, in many instances could well be blatant indifference to hotel rules by persistent guests.
