Geography 12 IB HL
January, 22, 2009
Mr. Brad Little
Assignment: Through trajectories C, D, or E. The student will present a credible cause of the decline and then propose a solution.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES:
1. Blog post that links to findings from their presentation.
2. Inclusion of the Butler’s Model diagram in the blog post.
3. Identification of a possible cause to the decline of their destination
4. Provision of a plausible solution to the challenges now facing the destination
Jamaica is a mixed economy with public sectors as well as private sector businesses. Major sectors of the Jamaican economy include agriculture, mining, manufacturing, tourism and financial and insurance services. Tourism and mining are the leading foreign exchange earners.
Economic Evaluation
Jamaica has, since the early 1980s, has executed structural reform aimed at promoting private sector activity and increasing the role of market forces in resource allocation. “Since 1991, the Government has followed a program of economic
liberalization and stabilization by removing exchange controls, floating the exchange rate, cutting tariffs, stabilizing the Jamaican currency, reducing inflation and removing restrictions on foreign investment. Greater openness to trade and financial flows, market liberalization has been developed.” This caused foreign investors to take an interest in Jamaica’s tourist potential and attracted tourist to a more stable economy.
After a period of steady growth from 1985 to 1995, Jamaica fell into an economical stagnation with a decrease of 3% in their real GDP. The decrease continued in 1996 and 1997 by 4% due to problems in the financial sector, which were affected by natural disasters. Hurricane Irin in 1996 caused great damage in the countries infrastructure plus a severe island-wide drought in the same year which drastically reduced agricultural production. Donations solicited by international aid organizations joined national funds in clearing roads, rebuilding houses, and replanting destroyed crops. “The CPEC (Caribbean Programme for Economic Competitiveness) was set up to strengthen economic sectors in various countries of the Caribbean.
In 1996 this program was approved to allocate CDN $25 million to cover the Caribbean, from which CDN$5 million were allocated to Jamaica, due to their economical stagnation and the natural disasters. After this massive help, Jamaica’s economy recovered. In 1998, growth in tourist arrivals accelerated with an overall increase of 8.5% in tourism earnings in compared to the years before.
In 2006, eight years later the economy of Jamaica has again reached economical stagnation. Inflation has increased 6.0%, unemployment has reach 12% and the real GDP has decrease by 1.5%. This has not yet had a great impact on the countries economy, but with the recent Hurricane striking Jamaica, infrastructure and agricultural establishment have been damaged, and have severely affected the country again.
Hurricane Dean was the strongest tropical cyclone of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season. It was the most intense Atlantic hurricane since Hurricane Wilma of 2005. The hurricane's intense winds, waves, rains and storm rush were responsible for at least 100 deaths across ten countries and caused estimated damages of US $2.0 billion. Dean's path through the Caribbean devastated agricultural crops, particularly those of Martinique and Jamaica causing a damage of $ 0.8 billion only within these two countries. Through the affected regions, cleanup and repair took months to complete. In Jamaica, where the damage was worst, banana production did not return to normal levels for over a year.
As you can see above, Jamaica has strike a point in the Butler’s model of decline cause mainly by natural disasters destructing the resources that in first place attracted the tourist. People around the world get scare and don’t feel confident to travel to the Caribbean. In 1996 a lot of international organizations intervened to help the country recovered, neighboring countries help clear roads, rebuild houses, and even replant destroyed crops. The country did not recovered immediately right after but the help definitely helped speed up the process.
If Jamaica wants to recovered from the recent crisis and prevent an even worst decline they are going to have to start thinking of asking for help like they did 8 years ago. Since Jamaica has become a more open economy with a rise on trade an a increase in foreign investment, this creates good relations with neighboring countries or trading partners who could be more flexible with taxation of exports in order for Jamaica to redirect their expenses towards the affected areas. International organizations could be approach like in 1996 to raise money that could be invested in the most affected sectors, or in this case the tourism sector. Confidence most be reestablished for the tourist who feels scare of visiting Jamaica, time will be a necessary factor to forget but certainly more advertisement and promoting of the country will be needed to attract the tourist.
Bibliography:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/jm.html
Wikipedia. Hurricanes of the Caribbean. November 2008
