Countrystyle Community Tourism Network

Has assisted and includes a number of organizations locally and internationally. Some are:

• Sustainable Communities Foundation (SCF)
• International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT)
• Counterpart International
• National Association of Jamaican and Supportive Organizations (NAJASO)
• National Returned Residents Association Jamaica
• National Taxi Association
• Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO)
• Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA)
• Jamaica Hotel & Tourist Association (JHTA)
• NCTVET
• Recycle for Life
• Ministry of Tourism & Industry
• Jamaica Tourist Board
• Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo)
• NGOS throughout the island – e.g. Portland Environmental Protection Association (PEPA), St. Elizabeth Homecoming Foundation, Bluefields People’s Communities Association (BPCA), Savanna-la-mar Arts Movement, Manchester Environmental Protection Association (MEPA), Southern Trelawny Environmental Agency (STEA), BREDS (Treasure Beach Foundation), Negril Area Environmental Protection Trust, Pure Love Alliance, SWA Craft Centre for girls,
• Manchester Parish Development Committee (MPDC)
• Council of Community Colleges of Jamaica
• Association of Local Government Authorities of Jamaica
• Social Development Commission (SDC)
• South Trelawny Development Community Development Fund
• University of the West Indies (UWI) Tourism Institute
• University of Technology (UTECH) Hospitality & Tourism .
• Knox Community College
• Northern Caribbean University
• Rural schools and other educational institutions island wide
• Chambers of Commerce islandwide especially Manchester, Negril,St Catherine, Jamaica Chamber, MontegoBay
• Environmental Action (ENACT)
• Jamaica Open College
• Enchanted Youth Development Association
• Sandals International
• Jamaica Standard Products – Manchester
• His Excellency, the Governor General
• UNESCO
• Environmental Foundation of Jamaica
• Canadian Green Fund (CIDA)
• Health Volunteers USA
• Optimist Club – University of Wisconsin
• Caribbean Business Enterprise Trust Inc. (Based in Barbados)
• Churches
• Inspire Jamaica Magazine Canada
• Jamaica Community Tourism Project
• International Orphanage Relief USA
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jamaica
• Manchester Wellness Foundation
• Resource Village Manchester
• Sturge Town Village St. Ann
• Inverness Village St Ann
• Beeston Spring Village Westmoreland
• Savanna-la-mar Westmoreland
• Buff Bay Portland
• Morant Bay St Thomas
• Lucea and Sandy Bay Hanover
• Villages islandwide through training programmes conducted with the Jamaica Community Tourism Project
• Jamaica Cluster Competitive Programme – MY JAMAICA
• Hospitality Institute Barbabos
• St Lucia Hotel & Tourist Association
• National Development Corporation – Dominica & community groups
• TIDCo Trinidad
• Cuban government
• St. Vincent Hotel Association
• Anguilla Tourist Board
• Community groups in Grenada
• Community groups in St Kitts
• UNESCO
• EAST project Jamaica

Excerpt of how we started (information sent to Islands Magazine for a Feature article for Countrystyle Community Tourism

1) The official organizations that I am involved with promotes community tourism in Jamaica are: Countrystyle International Ltd (which we market as Countrystyle Community Tourism Network), the Sustainable Communities Foundation through tourism which was created by a number of community groups to support the development especially the training aspect (which they channel through the Countrystyle Institute for Sustainable Tourism (CIST) ) and the International Institute for Peace through Tourism Caribbean chapter (IIPT) (which I am the President of) together with the IIPT Community Tourism Network involving 70 countries (see website www.iipt.org) which I am the Co-cordinator and formed as a direct result of our work here in community tourism and the two Community Tourism conferences and Retreat we held with the IIPT & SCF over the past five years.
We assisted to create the Jamaica Community Tourism Project proposed by the Sustainable Communities Foundation (SCF)(which was awarded JA$10m for a one year project see website www.uiwmona.edu.jm/jct for further information, and funded by CIDA through the Caribbean HRD Programme for Economic Competitiveness- CPEC) which is a Network of partners in support of the development of community tourism which involves: The University of the West Indies, HEART/NTA which is the national training agency and assisted us to develop Levels 1 - 2 for community tourism where community persons can now get accreditation and we are planning to work together with them to develop other programmes, Tourism Product Development Co (TPDCo) which is the government agency for product development who now support community tourism as the way forward and has included community tourism in the Tourism Master Plan for Jamaica, Social Development Commission which is the government community development agency which works together with for the training and sensitizing of communities - they assist to mobilize community groups to share the benefits of community tourism, the Jamaica Hotel & Tourist Association (JHTA) which is the official private sector tourism organization and they also work together in the six chapters especially with the Environmental programme EAST which is funded by USAID, the Negril Chamber of Commerce who invited Countrystyle to train over 300 persons and 50 community guides also, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce who assisted with resource information and office equipment, the St Elizabeth Homecoming who has been assisting with the co-ordination of the Project, the Ministry of Industry and Tourism and th Jamaica Tourist Board (who are both supporting the concept of community tourism vacations with our guidance) If you are interested in an update report on the results of the projects - I can also send you this

2) The concept of Community Tourism started in Jamaica as a result of my family's interest in people and offering local and foreign visitors a homely experience of Jamaica - my mother in particular, was the person who sewed the seeds and inspired me to take it further. She is the pioneer of Negril and was awarded an Order of Distinction (OD) by the government of Jamaica for her work. This was in the early sixties and she also had guest houses in Savanna-la-mar where as a child I interacted with guests who participated in all we did as a family -ie going to church, the market, parties etc which resulted in them becoming friends and repeat guests. So from this age I saw and experienced the benefits of this way of working together with communities.
When I studied hotel management, catering and tourism in Europe - I also experienced this approach and was convinced that Jamaica needed to develop an official programme, In 1973 -74 I worked at then the largest hotel in Jamaica - the Holiday Inn Hotel, as Guest Relations Director ahd after three months was amazed that I felt like I was in a different country!! There was nothing Jamaican about it and I felt embarrassed, disappointed and at the same time excited that I could design something within the hotel to educate the guests about the country and the people. So I put together a programme which I named the Jamaica Chit Chat Session which was a two hour educational programme about our history, culture, cuisine, and lifestyle of the people - community persons from all walks of life were invited to be a part of the session to assist in responding to the MANY (and there were) questions. Initially the Manager of the hotel felt that this was not a good idea as all guests he felt wanted to do was lie on the beach, drink rum and have a tan and I dared to disagree with him! He gave me a chance anyway somewhat reluctantly and I ended up having to have this programme almost every day - guests would speak to me after the session and said that if I had not had this session, they would not have returned to Jamaica. I then moved my office to the lobby and turned it into an information centre where community persons would assist all day with information - this included where to go and also to eat good Jamaican food (as they did not get this in the hotel) and all of this resulted in a dynamic approach to tourism with a hotel leading it. This is how I made my mark in tourism as there was a great deal of publicity and I was only 21! However, the Manager of the hotel was concerned that I was promoting community restaurants outside and asked me one day who was I working for - was it Holiday Inn, Jamaica or Montego Bay? I responded that I worked for all and he asked me again who paid me and I told him Holiday Inn. Then he reprimanded me by advising me that I will not be allowed to promote restaurants outside as my job was only to promote restaurants inside the hotel.
At this point I advised him that I was a proud Jamaican and could not have guests not experience our food which was not offered in Holiday Inn.
Then I decided that I had to leave and trained someone else to do the work the way he wanted it as I wanted to leave with grace and was offered a job by the late Abe Issa who was one of the godfathers of tourism at the Runaway Bay Hotel & Golf Club - here I was given the opportunity to carry on the programme. I was also offered by the Jamaica Tourist Board a German Scholarship to study hotel management and tourism as they felt that I deserved this due to my work.
When I lived in Germany I continued developing the programme - getting information on what was happening in Europe and made up my mind that I would not work in Resort tourism when I returned to Jamaica but develop a programme for communities in Jamaica.
I returned to Jamaica in 1977 and met the then Director of Tourism Mr. Desmond Henry who shared my views -together we formed the South Coast Marketing company and did a survey with the assistance of my late brother Gordon McIntyre to determine if the south coast communities wanted tourism and if so what kind of tourism. The result was that they wanted a tourism that complimented their lifestyle and did not change their values and lifestyle. So Desmond and I met and discussed this and together came up with the brand name COMMUNITY TOURISM which did not exist as a brand name before - so much so people at the time did not take us seriously including our tourism colleagues. For example, the idea of including schools, churches etc as community attractions for visitors was even scorned at that we could not promote tourism off the beach.
Since then we formed the Central and South Tourism Committee to assist Treasure Beach area in developing community tourism and lobby against a nudist hotel which was being created as the community were upset as they were fishing and agricultural-based people and did not want this kind of 'nastiness' as they termed it. We were successful in closing down this hotel in two weeks and they had to become what it used to be a family hotel.
This committee became the Central and South Tourism Organization (CESTO) which was chaired by Pharmacist Stafford Haughton from Haughton’s pharmacy and received funding support from the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica to attend conferences internationally which included me attending the International Institute for Peace through tourism's 2nd Global Conference in Montreal to share the history of community tourism and my vision for community tourism. It was at this conference that we promoted community tourism internationally as the over 800 persons who attended from 70 countries returned to their home motivated and inspired. This is how we got the brand name out COMMUNITYTOURISM, The IIPT at time was calling it Community-based tourism and Rural Tourism.
CESTO then emerged into the Sustainable Communities Foundation in the 90s with the assistance of a Sustainable Development Consultant Mr. David Brown - based in Miami (email DB3277@aol.com) who worked together with Countrystyle in further designing the community tourism programme on the request of the many many community groups all over the island - so we had to develop an organization for community tourism which was not only for the south coast. We proposed to change the name from CESTO to SCF (which was David's name and was accepted as a good name) and we then presented it to CESTO who accepted it as the way forward and Mr. Haughton passed over the Chairmanship to Mrs. Beverly Henry, Educator from the Northern Caribbean University.
Countrystyle's role in all of this has been a supportive one - coming up with initiatives - getting community support and encouraging SCF to apply for funding which we successfully did with the Jamaica Community Tourism Project. All the voluntary work Countrystyle and I in particular has done over the last 35 years - has been noted by the funding agencies as building capacity for the development of SCF which now has seven chapters islandwide, in FLorida through the leadership of David Brown, Dominica, St. Lucia and other islands are not developing their chapters. More recently the Caribbean Hotel Association has at last come on board with community tourism (I have been trying for years to get them on board when I was the Chairman of the Small Hotels Committee for six years) and the new President Berthia Parle has agreed to become our Caribbean Ambassador for Community Tourism (this just happened last month) -- we plan to announce this soon officially (you can feel free to include this in your article) and have a special function to share with the Caribbean the benefits of community tourism through the CHA. This is good news for us.
Also we have Butch Stewart, Chairman/CEO of Sandals Resorts International and Air Jamaica as one of the main Patrons of Community Tourism through the SCF and they are working closely with the Community Tourism Network we have created to support the community experience tours I am attaching the ones we have created through the newly formed MY JAMAICA programme (www.explorejamaica.org ) We have designed an all inclusive community experience package through Countrystyle which is bringing business to communities over the last five years - Air Jamaica is our official carrier. The good news is that My Jamaica is based on the principles of community tourism and now gives us more an opportunity to make community tourism more meaningful economically for Jamaica.