I've been going for 20 years and Negril has always been a hassle in that regard.

Everyone claims to have a magic formula for dealing with it, but they're lying. If you're a long-time visitor, the long-time hasslers will recognize you and not hassle you. But there are always some annoying newly-minted hustlers to deal with. Nothing works against the really aggressive ones. Once I got into a fist-fight with one before the hotel security guard broke it up. Another time I made it back to my rental car after being really aggressively followed/hassled/threatened, then came really close to running the guy down (he had to dive into the bushes to get out of my way). I was really mad, obviously. That was satisfying but not a good idea really. Winding up in prison would not have been a good way to spend my vacation.

These days I always stay in Airbnb's outside of Negril (e.g. Lucea, Sav) & just go into Negril when I want to be hassled, kidding!, really I just go to Negril when I want to partake of its beaches or restaurants or clubs. Then I go back to the regular Jamaica. The hassling only exists in the tourist towns. In regular Jamaican towns like Sav or Lucea I can just walk around calmly like a regular person, same as I would in any US city.

Richard