An interesting article from Travel Pulse yesterday presents from travel agent's point of marketing Jamaica.

Do you think that they have it accurate or are they missing the boat?

Here is the Jamaica section of the article:

Negril, Jamaica is among locales that have made great strides.

“You’ve come a long way, baby!” That old advertising slogan can also be applied to many destinations, resorts, hotels and other tourism businesses that might have stumbled on the way to their current successes.
TravelPulse asked travel agents to tell us about the travel entities that they think have made great strides in the industry.

Jamaica

Since 1992, Tom Carr of Preferred Vacations in Georgetown, Kentucky, has been traveling to Jamaica and he remembers when it was once dubbed “the murder capital of the world.” It also had other major issues.

“The island's infrastructure needed major investment,” said Carr. “Back in the 1990s, if you went to Negril, the road was horrendous. It was so bad that Air Jamaica Express operated several daily flights over to Negril, in addition to the smaller companies, such as Tim Air and Jamaica AirLink, which were flourishing as a result.”
He noted that the road to Ocho Rios was narrow and took forever and that the Sangster International Airport was in shambles.

Today, it’s quite obvious that the situation is much improved and Jamaica has become a very popular tourist spot.
“Through increased police patrols and anti-gang efforts, the country has stemmed the violence, and I no longer hear the objections from customers when Jamaica is mentioned as a possible destination for their vacations,” said Carr.

Carr said that new highways connecting Negril, Kingston and Ocho Rios have made a big difference in the destination.
“Jamaica privatized the airport leading to massive improvement,” Carr added.
Carr was always told that Jamaica needed to fear the opening of Cuba to U.S. citizens.
“Around 2001, a hotelier told me that Jamaica didn't have the hotel inventory and quality to compete and that nothing was being done to prepare for it,” he said. “Then came the 'Spanish Invasion.'”

Carr noted that Jamaica's hotel product needed a refresh or an influx of new blood. With the entry of major Spanish chains like RIU, Iberostar and Palladium, Jamaica became a hot destination.

“That drove American and Mexican chains to acquire properties and land for new builds. The investment has put thousands of new rooms into the island's inventory and more are coming,” he said.

Here is the link to the full article:

http://www.travelpulse.com/news/feat...t-strides.html

What do you think about this take on Jamaica?