Westmoreland Parish
Westmoreland's Negril Seven Mile Beach transformed the parish from sugar/fishing economy into Jamaica's western tourism anchor with continued interior agriculture.
Westmoreland hosts Negril, Jamaica's western tourism anchor where Seven Mile Beach provides the iconic imagery that competes with Montego Bay for visitor attention. The parish's transformation from sugar and fishing economy toward tourism destination demonstrates how natural assets can catalyze rapid sectoral change when investment materializes and access improves.
The beach resort industry creates employment that agricultural work cannot match—hotels, restaurants, water sports, entertainment generating livelihoods for communities that once depended on sugar cane cultivation. This tourism prosperity concentrates along the coast while the interior maintains agricultural character, producing bananas, rice, cocoa, coffee, and ginger for markets that tourism expansion has not displaced.
Fishing remains economically significant, coastal communities harvesting marine resources that resort restaurants demand while maintaining livelihoods that predate tourism development. Whether Westmoreland can balance tourism growth with environmental preservation—preventing the overdevelopment that degraded other Caribbean destinations—tests whether paradise can remain paradisiacal once tourists discover it. The parish's position among Jamaica's top tourism earners confirms that the transformation has achieved economic success, whatever environmental costs accumulate.