Customer Reviews

To Hell With Paradise: A History of the Jamaican Tourist Industry (Pitt Latin American Series)

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Very good. There should be more books written like this. People need to see the real effects of mass tourism. They really need to understand that their tourism dollars DO NOT "trickle down" to the poor people in countries like Jamaica. If you do go to Jamaica, do the right thing, stay out of the all-inclusives, go green, go to small "ma and pa" style accomodations, help the Jamaican people get out of the debt and extreme poverty that the World Trade Organization and the USA have forced them into.

This book is a real eye opener for the Jamaica tourist who cares at all about Jamaica. The history of tourism described in this book has many, many parallels to modern Jamaican tourism (white tourists were complaining about hustlers in the 1800s...prostitutes popped up almost immediately upon tourism's start).

However, it sometimes has the feel of a dissertation, and can be a bit dry at times. I also wished it had gone a little further with modern tourism and spent a little less time with the beginnings.

Overall, for the "Jamaicaholic", this is well worth reading.