The island to which J. B. Priestley refers in the epigraph above is not the same one as that named by Litvin and Fyffe. Priestley continues, ‘Unless we realize at once what is happening and make up our minds to put an end to these horrors, beautiful England will soon be no more than a ghost haunting libraries and art galleries’. The celebrated novelist wrote those words in a message commending the publication of the book Britain and the Beast, a collection of essays by distinguished writers concerned about the spoliation of Britain's landscape. For decades, many writers have expressed similar concerns about Jamaica, partly because, like their British counterparts, they felt a genuine love for the landscape, and also because they recognized the value of a beautiful environment as an economic resource.

This chapter is a study of landscape beauty as a resource for the tourist industry (Hudson, 1986). Using a wide range of sources, it traces the development of one particular tourist resort area, Negril, in Jamaica, which has been promoted largely for its natural beauty and pristine tropical environment. It demonstrates how those qualities have been affected by the tourist industry and questions how far landscape is valued by promoters of tourism and even by the tourists themselves.

Jamaica's Tourism Landscape and the Media

Jamaica's reputation for landscape beauty is centuries old. As Barry Floyd observed: