Vote next month for Port Royal being designated a World Heritage Site
/ Our Today
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Durrant Pate/ Contributor
The World Heritage Committee is set to make Port Royal a World Heritage Site when it votes next month on the new World Heritage Sites.
If Jamaica is successful in its bid, the event would mark the realisation of a national objective since 1988 when Port Royal was first nominated to the World Heritage List by the Government of Jamaica. It is notable that the site includes terrestrial and underwater heritage, bearing in mind the continued presence of the sunken city of Port Royal.
With Port Royal being declared a World Heritage Site, this would provide greater impetus for the Cruise Pier there to become an active port for disembarkation and attraction in the expansion of Jamaica’s tourism product.
Such a move also has implications for the commercial and economic development of the people of Port Royal and its development as an entertainment zone featuring Fort Charles, Fort Rocky, the Naval Hospital and restaurants in the area.
The World Heritage Site designation would have economic benefits for the nearby capital city of Kingston, with its many tourist attractions and the redevelopment of the Rockfort Mineral Bath, which is nearing completion and will be fully activated in short order.
This enables a dynamic mix of health and heritage tourism for cruise ship passengers and also expands substantially the offerings of Kingston to include the Bob Marley Museum, National Gallery of Jamaica, National Museums of Jamaica, including the Jamaica Music Museum, and Trench Town Culture Yard, among others.
Port Royal would join the Reggae Music of Jamaica and Pilgrimage to Watt Town as inscriptions to UNESCO’s respective World Heritage and Cultural Heritage Lists.
The government is particularly pleased at how UNESCO’s inscription of the Revival Pilgrimage to Watt Town in St. Ann has emboldened practising Revivalists, who have faced discrimination for their style of Christian worship over the years.
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