Hurricane is not a new event in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, the location of the ‘rocks’ in the Caribbean Sea on which we live makes our island homes highly susceptible to this natural phenomenon.

Hurricane impacts in the region are devastating, regardless of their category. In recent times, Category 4 2017 Hurricane Maria devastated the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, causing over 3,000 deaths, displacing several thousands, and causing millions of dollars in property damage. Jamaica has had its share of hurricane devastation with the 1988 Category 4 Gilbert, 2004 Category 4 Ivan, 2008 Category 4 Dean, 2012 Category 1 Sandy, 2024 Category 3 Beryl, and the most recent, 2025 Category 5 Melissa.

Natural disasters inevitably harm tourism, obviously decreasing tourist arrivals and revenue inflows, and causing infrastructural and superstructural damage. Melissa is the most catastrophic hurricane to have ever impacted Jamaica, particularly in the south-western to western parts of the island, and affecting both directly and indirectly the surroundings of four of the six designated and unique resort areas — south coast, Negril, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios. The areas gravely impacted are the main tourism destinations and agricultural belt of the island.

Tourism directly contributes 10 per cent to Jamaica’s gross domestic product (GDP), with close to a third of the country’s GDP being realised from a combination of direct and indirect tourism activities. The industry employs approximately 10 per cent of the workforce, among other contributions. Currently, more than 40 per cent of Jamaica’s GDP is impacted by the hurricane and there is a significant loss to forestry and other natural and physical assets used for tourism. This makes the tourism link of demand and supply extremely fragile at this time.

Despite this and other realities, and without being insensitive to the populace of the affected areas, we have to ‘put on our thinking caps’ for recovery. From the perspective of tourism recovery, growth and development, people travel to destinations that have been impacted by disasters for several reasons. We are already seeing where both residents and individuals and groups from other countries are visiting the hard-hit areas in Jamaica assisting with recovery efforts. This is a less structured approach to domestic and international travel, stemming from first response approaches and humanitarian actions that can be linked to voluntourism, where people travel for charitable reasons. Although this form of tourism does not add much to the financial coffers, as there is little or no expenditure on tourism goods and services — apart from accommodation in some instances — there may be local spending in the nearby unaffected surroundings on items needed for the recovery exercises.

Visits to the affected areas ought to be handled in a respectful way. Visitors are to be highly sensitive to the plight and circumstances of the residents. They should limit media exposure, especially for the most vulnerable. A less structured approach to visiting these areas results in traffic congestion and can hamper recovery operations. This was experienced at the 2019 Kerala landslide in India, where emergency vehicles could not gain access to the area due to the vehicular traffic by visitors. The same occurred at the 2015 Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. This was also reported at the early onset of visits to the affected areas in Jamaica.

More substantial opportunities can emerge from a more structured visitor approach to these affected areas by way of ‘Disaster Tourism’. Some people will travel to these areas to explore the wreckages (anthropologists) and this calls for the need to preserve those historical artefacts which are the heritage and legacies of the areas and Jamaica as a whole. Others will travel to gather more information or re-examine the disaster (social and natural scientists), leading to edutourism as well as for sightseeing. The Pompeii in Rome is a very useful example. The fall of a city caused by a volcanic eruption and is now sunken has led to the rise of this UNESCO Heritage Site. Today, it remains as one of Italy’s most visited areas for edutourism and sightseeing. The town of Black River can be rebuilt with this example in mind. The future could see an amphitheatre for cultural activities and a museum to hold the artefacts of the old town, which is known for its many historical legacies the first to have electricity in the western hemisphere and some of its 19th century history to include the courthouse and the Catholic and Anglican churches.

Disaster tourism must be managed responsibly, where all stakeholders, including residents and visitors should be mindful of their surroundings, be respectful to all beings and the social and cultural environments. Disaster tourism must take into consideration ethical practices for gender equality, cultural sensitivity, stakeholder inclusion, and race and ethnic diversity as well as moral principles and legalities of the country.

Although the actual value of disaster tourism cannot be ascertained, it is a sub-category of dark tourism for which Coherent Market Insights (2025) relates as a global market with a current value (2025) of US$32.76 billion and a projected value of US$40 billion by 2032. The main distinction between the two types of tourism is that dark tourism is associated with death and tragedy and disaster tourism specifically relates to places that have been devastated due to a natural or man-made disaster. Disaster tourism would be the preferred tourism model in this case.

There are opportunities for a more resilient and inclusive tourism industry, one which focuses on special interest tourism. We can rebuild our tourist resorts for the world to come and see what was and experience what is.

Professor Gaunette Sinclair-Maragh is associate dean- research and graduate studies at the University of Technology, Jamaica.

Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or gmaragh@yahoo.com.