The Jamaican government said on Monday that at least 32 people were killed Hurricane MelissaInformation Minister Dana Morris Dixon said there were likely eight more unconfirmed deaths.
With its tourist season only a month away, officials are rushing to restructure disaster Category 5 storm which reduced the western region of the island. Before the hurricanes hit on October 28, the government expected Jamaica’s tourism industry to grow by 7% this winter season, and was preparing to welcome 4.3 million visitors.
Now, officials are scrambling to repair hotels and clean up debris in the western half of the island, hoping to secure tourism dollars at a time when they are most needed.
Melissa was the strongest hurricane to hit the island since records began 174 years ago. The National Hurricane Center said the storm initially made landfall near New Hope, on Jamaica’s southwest coast.
Matias Delacroix / AP 
Before the storm, he said the Jamaican government had done everything it could to prepare. “There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5,” said First Minister Andrew Holness.
“We’re still doing our assessments, but most of the damage was in the northwest and southwest,” said Christopher Jarrett, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourism Association.
He noted that the popular Negril area of Westmoreland was spared significant damage.
All international airports in Jamaica have reopened and are receiving commercial flights. But almost a week later One of the strongest hurricanes in the Atlantic It hit the western tip of Jamaica, where tourism officials were still trying to get a true picture of the damage to the sector – the backbone of the island’s economy.
Jarrett said the lobby group representing the island’s private hotels and attractions still can’t reach many of its members, especially in western Hanover Parish, because communications and power services were down.
“Each affected member is doing everything to get the business up and running again,” he said.
In recent days, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said he hoped Jamaica’s tourism sector would return to normal by December 15, the start of the island’s peak tourism season.
“It’s doable for some and not for others,” Jarrett said of the timeline, noting that the big hotel chains would be able to recover more quickly.
Matias Delacroix / AP 
Jarrett, who manages the Altamont Court Hotel, which has properties in Kingston and Montego Bay, said only one property in Montego Bay sustained roof damage and repairs were underway.
Despite the disruption to the important tourism sector, Jarrett said he does not expect the effect on the economy to be significant. He said many hotels in the capital Kingston and the northern coastal city of Ocho Rios were gaining business because of the influx of aid workers and volunteers after the hurricane.
“Right now, we’re giving discounts, anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent, and (hotels) are also giving additional accommodations,” Jarrett said.
Tourism is Jamaica’s main source of foreign exchange earnings, contributing a combined 30% directly and indirectly to gross domestic product. It employs approximately 175,000 people and is an economic driver of other sectors of the Jamaican economy such as construction, banking and finance, public services and agriculture.
The disruption of the tourism sector also affects many suppliers of goods and services.
“With some hotels closed and most tourists gone, many of us are out of work. This storm has not only destroyed buildings, it has broken jobs and incomes for many of us and our families,” said Patricia Mighten, a hotel housekeeper who works in Hanover’s western parish.
Desrine Smith, a craft dealer who works in the resort town of Falmouth in the northwest parish of Trelawny, echoed those sentiments.
“The passing of tourists without coming to buy anything has no sales and no money. We survive with our daily profits, and now everything is uncertain,” he said. “The hurricane has hit our pockets hard.”
Crews are still trying to get into 25 isolated sites in western Jamaica as helicopters continue to drop food. Almost half of all electricity customers are still without electricity.