VOLUME 05 Issue 10 October 2026
Paul Andrew Bourne, PhD, DrPH
Assistant Professor University of the Commonwealth Caribbean Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies
DOI : https://doi.org/10.58806/ijsshmr.2026.v5i10n03Google Scholar Download Pdf
ABSTRACT
Tourism represents a major component of Jamaica's economy, while the country has simultaneously experienced a historically high burden of homicide that can influence destination image, perceived safety, travel decisions, and international tourism demand. This study examines whether annual tourist arrivals in Jamaica are a function of annual homicide and develops the Bourne Homicide–Tourism Function (B-HTF) for estimating the responsiveness of tourist arrivals to changes in homicide. A quantitative longitudinal time-series design is proposed using annual Jamaica Tourist Board tourist-arrival data and Jamaica Constabulary Force homicide data, with the longest consistently comparable annual series used for the final empirical estimation. The analytical framework includes descriptive trends, annual point-to-point homicide elasticities of tourist arrivals, log-log regression, first-difference models, lagged homicide specifications, structural-break analysis, and an extended tourism-demand model controlling for income in source markets, prices, exchange rates, airlift, accommodation capacity, promotion, natural disasters, COVID-19, and other shocks. Previous Jamaican and international research indicate that crime can negatively affect tourism demand, although Jamaica's resort structure, promotion, destination loyalty, and geographical concentration of violence may moderate the relationship. The study hypothesises a negative homicide elasticity of tourist arrivals but emphasises that the coefficient must be estimated empirically and distinguished from causal effects because tourism and homicide are influenced by numerous contemporaneous and lagged factors.
KEYWORDS:homicide; tourist arrivals; tourism demand; homicide elasticity; crime; Jamaica; Bourne Homicide–Tourism Function
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Cite this Article: Bourne, P. A. (2026). Tourist Arrivals as a Function of Homicide in Jamaica: Developing the Bourne Homicide–Tourism Function and Estimating the Homicide Elasticity of Tourism Demand. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE HUMANITY & MANAGEMENT RESEARCHS, 5(10), 2489-2508. https://doi.org/10.58806/ijsshmr.2026.v5i10n03