THE story of Scotland’s Loch Ness monster is one of the most tantalising tall tales in modern history. The mysterious monster is said to occupy a lake, Loch Ness, in the Scottish Highlands, and has been allegedly spotted repeatedly since she first showed up in 1933, but those claims have never been proven to be the real Mckoy.

Numerous photographs and stories have all led to a dead end as misidentification, hallucination, or plain fabrication.

Yet, in spite of her naysayers, Nessie — as she is called — has soldiered on over the years, a shadow here, a fast-disappearing hump there, a ripple in the water, and a tale told by hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts who visit Scotland with the Loch Ness monster on their must-see list.

They have followed her on camera, camp-outs, boats, helicopters, submarines, sonar tech, and wishful thinking. To no avail. The mysterious monster lives on in books, movies, comics, music, poetry, games, and remains the stuff of which true legends are made.

I make the point about Nessie because every year tourists spend an estimated £25 million on Loch Ness hotels, boat rides, transportation, souvenirs, tours and even Nessie-themed museums.

Which tells me that in Jamaica we could do with a good Nessie or two as a staple on our tourism attractions menu.

“Jamaica is the perfect destination for travellers in search of paranormal legends and stories,” says John Lynch, director of tourism.

Rose Hall is the number one in that category and has raked in some healthy dollars from its murky past. Rose Hall has always been a good story with its beautiful great house mistress, murdered husbands, and stories of romantic entangles with her choice house slaves.

The great house, its imposing entrance, the Rose Hall Hotel and Golf Course, and the intriguing legends well told by the guides, can rival any of the great suspense stories which attract tourists and movie makers. And who remembers the four palm trees that stood in solitary splendour by the water wheel of the old estate only a few years ago, said to represent each of the unfortunate husbands killed by the wicked widow?

In fact, Rose Hall was, for one unforgettable week, the centre of world occult attractions as one night in the 1990s a world-famed ‘obeahman’ tried to raise Annie Palmer from the dead. Thousands flocked to the great house to see and tread warily, but nothing happened.

We missed the bus, I think, as just one little sighting of Annie would have rolled over into mega dollars with vast numbers of ghost busters making their pilgrimage to Rose Hall each year on the anniversary of the ‘raising’.

But we are sitting on other legends and not realising their potential. The story has it that centuries ago, in a quest for gold, a group of Spaniards captured a beautiful Taino priestess named Martha Brae and forced her to reveal the location of a gold mine.

Giving in to their demands, she led them to the mine but invoked supernatural powers to change the nearby river course. The river overflowed its banks and caused the priestess and the Spaniards to drown, and closed the mine entrance forever.

But the legend continues, as it is said that on a moonlit night you may be lucky to see the priestess, now a mermaid, sitting on the island in the river a few metres from the present Rafters’ Village, combing her long black hair. But be careful, goes the story, as many have fallen prey to the river in an attempt to seize a lock of her hair or to touch the comb which would guarantee wealth and perhaps a night of romance.

Such a magical legend is there for the asking, but I am afraid we sell the river mainly as a rafting tour without seizing the opportunity to speculate and ‘pop stories’ on the mystery of Martha Brae, as is done in Scotland with their mysterious Loch Ness monster.

Just one reported sighting of Martha, my tourism friends, and the world may yet give up on Loch Ness and beat a path to Trelawny’s door to seek fortune and fame from the mermaid’s comb.

We have failed to maximise the economic benefits that can be achieved from our shrines of fame, heritage sites, and places of interest. Thousands are at last visiting Bob Marley’s birthplace and grave, but in no measure like the multitudes that trek to the first homes of music icons all over the world, for example the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and Elvis Presley.

Austria boasts that its Central Cemetery is “a wonderful place to visit to find the graves of several world-renowned classical composers. Not only will you find Schubert, you’ll find Beethoven, Brahms, and Strauss”.

New Orleans celebrates itself as the birthplace of jazz at its official tourism site, honouring memorials to Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Count Basie, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, and others.

Not to speak of Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, which is flooded with a multitude of attractions such as theatres, historic homes, gardens, shops, and restaurants.

We need to dig deeper into our stories and legends and provide more than just a rest room stop or a photograph.

For example, Marcus Garvey towers over our other national heroes as a man with international acclaim, but his birthplace in St Ann’s Bay is still undeveloped, still unheralded, and still wanting as a gold mine for heritage tourism.

There are ambitious moves afoot to name the intersection next to his birthplace Marcus Garvey Square, to be developed hopefully as a business and entertainment centre in the style of the famous Jack London Square in Oakland, California, itself named after a popular American author.

Mark up one for Garvey, but how about Seville Great House and Heritage Park in St Ann, named by UNESCO as part of a world heritage site but still lying fallow to the huge tourism numbers that it ought to attract? According to UNESCO, this Jamaican jewel “wholly embodies events of a universal cultural heritage”, and is considered the genesis of Jamaican history.

To add spice to the first-class Jamaican historical museum it houses, we should first repair the entrance roads and then develop that great untold story of the slave remains discovered at Seville in the 1990s. Seville has the distinction of containing the first bodies recovered from a slave burial ground anywhere in the African-Caribbean experience, and the four remains were reburied in the plantation owners’ family burial spot during the annual Seville Emancipation night in 1997.

In 1998, the remains of one of these bodies were repatriated to Ghana as a symbolic repatriation of all enslaved Africans back to their homeland. This has been given little publicity in Jamaica, but is regarded as a national landmark in Africa and the remains were received by thousands with great joy and jubilation on arrival.

What a tale to tell. It has historical, heritage and tourism value, with potential for a kind of Loch Ness attraction, except that, unlike Martha Brae, there are no embellishments needed to make the Seville story come alive. This is the kind of narrative that deserves recounting and satisfies the tourist’s thirst for history and information.

The Jamaica Railway story is also waiting to be dramatised. The abandoned Old Harbour station off the May Pen-Spanish Town highway offers itself as a classical museum and tour spot for the thousands of Railway Historical Society members around the world. And the Montego Bay to Catadupa train ride is still waiting to be revived. All on board?

Lance Neita is a public relations and communications specialist. Comments to the Observer or to lanceneita@hotmail.com