Paper long abstract:

Gay tourism can arguably be seen as an increasingly lucrative form of niche tourism because of the growing economic wealth of the gay visitor and the increasing legitimisation of homosexuality particularly within the developed world. However, despite this apparent importance of the gay consumer in general, and specifically within the context of tourism, to date there has been a dearth of studies on homosexuality and tourism. Undeniably, for researchers in tourism who seem to be already unwilling to address issues of sexuality and corporeality, the subject of homosexuality seems to present an added complexity and sensitivity. The lack of studies in this area might also lie in the difficulties associated with definitions of homosexuality and consequently with identifying the gay traveller as a distinct market segment. This paper seeks to, in some way, contribute to the limited discussion on homosexuality and travel through a focus on the attitudes of host societies towards homosexuality, and by extension, towards gay travel, with particular focus on the Caribbean island of Jamaica. The paper presents an exploratory argument which is grounded in a postcolonial theoretical context and which draws on evidence from an eclectic mix of secondary sources including newspaper articles, journals, magazines and the internet. Two issues are explored in the paper: The first interrogates the argument that the negative attitudes of many Jamaicans towards homosexuality are a reflection of a wider post colonial political struggle. This wider struggle is against colonial legacies of poverty and violence against a largely black male 'underclass' with homophobia emerging as an exaggerated masculinity in the face of this emasculation of the black male. The second exploration undertaken in this paper is related to whether the pressure exerted on the island to conform to the more 'liberal,' 'enlightened' attitudes of the developed, capitalist world towards homosexuality can be viewed as a form of postcolonial imperialism which is increasingly being played out in and through tourism.