In the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, Jamaica is doing what it has always done; come together, rebuild, and find strength where destruction tried to take it away.  

However, as we begin that process, we have an opportunity that goes far beyond repairing roads and restoring power.  

For years, growth has looked good on paper, even as the lived experience of many Jamaicans has worsened.  

Recovery gives us the opportunity to change that story. Not only in our infrastructure, but our wellbeing, our resilience, and the fairness of our economy.  

1. Beyond the Headlines: Growth or Progress?  

Before the storm, Jamaica’s economy looked strong on paper. Ministers highlighted record FDI, hotel construction, high rise buildings, and investor confidence, all painting a picture of success. 

Beneath the surface, however, people’s wellbeing was quietly declining.  

According to the World Happiness Report (based on Gallup data), Jamaica’s ranking fell from 37^th in 2021 to 84^th in 2024. I think this hints at, even during years of on paper economic success, Jamaicans themselves were feeling worse off.  

Rebuilding gives us a chance to ask, are we rebuilding the system that led to this decline, or do we build a Jamaica that prioritises the wellbeing of its own people?  

2. Foreign Investment Must Support Jamaicans  

Under the Hotel Incentives Act, developers can import materials duty-free. 

Local entrepreneurs cannot. 
Local manufacturers cannot. 
Local artisans cannot. 

So even as hotels “create jobs,” they: 

• undercut local businesses 

• drive up land prices 

• increase the cost of living 

• send profits abroad 

This is growth without roots and the hurricane has made this painfully clear. If rebuilding simply means mire imported hotel materials, more expatriate managers and more profits flowing outwards, we will not strengthen local Jamaican resilience and will instead repeat the same vulnerabilities that disasters keep exposing.  

3. Land, Community, and the Cost of Losing What Grounds Us  

After a hurricane, when families need places to live, plant, heal and reconnect, land becomes even more sacred. However, every new hotel meant/means less land for housing, farming, and community life. Jamaica’s coastline is finite — once privatized, it rarely returns to the public. 

The Jamaica Information Service (2018) reported that 60% of the island’s food imports go to the hotel, restaurant, and institutional sector, even as hotels occupy farmland.  

In the long-term, this erodes resilience — something disasters make painfully clear. 

Rebuilding should mean protecting land for communities, not accelerating its loss.  

4. Rebuilding With Wellbeing in Mind  

Wellbeing economics reminds us that development must enrich people’s lives, not just balance sheets. 

When economic ‘progress’ leads to fenced off areas, privatised beaches, and unaffordable locations, we lose access to spaces that support:  

• Mental health 

• social connection/community cohesion  

• Family time  

• Recreation  

• Cultural belonging  

When development reduces these outcomes , it not progress but rather a quiet form of displacement. Rebuilding mist preserve and expand these fundamental foundations of wellbeing, not reducethem.  

5. We Cannot Rebuild a Modern Plantation Economy 

The comparison is uncomfortable, but sometimes discomfort is truth. 

Tourism employs thousands, but too many workers survive on low wages, seasonal shifts, and unpredictable income.  

The average hotel worker earns about J$1.1 million per year — roughly £4,000 — often serving guests who spend that much in a week. Expatriate managers however, are paid internationallycompetitive wages, that are also made in USD rather than JMD.  

Recent reports of hotel workers protesting 13-hour shifts without overtime, delayed wages, or even food rations echo systems of exploitation rather than empowerment. 

As one resort worker put it: 

“We feel like slaves, working from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. without any remuneration.” ( Tourism Turmoil, Jamaica Gleaner)

This reflects a system that does not treat Jamaicans with the dignity they deserve, and turns its back on the brutal history of exploitation and resistance in the country. 

What the hurricane also highlighted is that jobs like these disappear first during hurricanes, pandemics, or shocks. This fragility, does not serve Jamaicans at a period in history when natural disasters seem to be increasing in frequency.  

As Abigayle Morgan noted in a World Bank essay: 

“The lack of job security and prevalence of low-paying, under-employed positions drive emigration and perpetuate poverty and crime.” 

And from ‘Jamaica’s poverty rollercoaster: harnessing data to break the cycle‘: 

“Many jobs are concentrated in low-productivity sectors like tourism and retail. When COVID hit, unemployment surged from 7.3% to 12.6% in six months.” 

Rebuilding gives us a chance to strengthen job security, wages, and dignity. 

6. A Better Tourism Model – One That Makes Jamaica Stronger  

Recovery is a chance to reset. We don’t need more all-inclusives. We need inclusive development. 

A new model should focus on: 

• community-owned tourism e.g Homestays

• local agriculture and supply chains 

• eco-tourism led by local communities 

• open beaches and shared spaces 

• Support for small businesses, not just global chains 

This would create a model that bends but does not break when disasters come.  

7. Shifting The Focus: High-Value Jobs Not Hotels

For decades, Jamaica’s development strategy has leaned heavily on tourism — but the hurricane has made something undeniable: an economy built on low-wage, low-security jobs cannot carry a nation through crisis or into long-term prosperity.

Tourism will always be important.
But it cannot remain the centre of our economic identity.

Right now, thousands of highly educated and qualified Jamaicans — engineers, economists, analysts, creatives, IT specialists, researchers — have to emigrate simply to access the jobs and salaries their skills deserve. Our brightest minds are becoming the backbone of economies abroad instead of the one they were raised in.

If Jamaica is rebuilding, then we must rebuild with a new economic vision — one where value-added industries are priorities.

We need to invest in sectors that create high-paying, globally competitive, future-proof jobs, including:

• consultancy and professional services
• digital services and IT
• data science and research
• financial and business services
• creative industries and content development
• climate resilience, sustainability, and green technology
• STEM and advanced manufacturing

These are the sectors that offer real career progression, real wages, and real global competitiveness. They are also sectors with low physical vulnerability — meaning storms cannot wipe out an entire region’s income overnight.

Tourism alone cannot hold up a modern country.

If Jamaica invests in its people — their skills, their creativity, their ambition — we will no longer rebuild from disaster only to lose our best talent to Canada, the UK, or the US.

8. Final Thought: Rebuilding With Purpose 

Hurricane Melissa has reshaped the land, let us reshape our ideas. 

As Jamaica rebuilds, we must ask: 

Who really benefits — and who pays the price? 

Growth that comes with loss is not progress. Jamaica deserves a model that strengthens families, protects land, and improves the daily lives of the people who make the island what it is. 

Until success is measured not by GDP or visitor arrivals, but by the wellbeing of Jamaicans, we risk building a paradise that feels less and less like home. 

This time, our development model must put Jamaican wellbeing at its heart – not as an afterthought, but as the measure of true recovery.