Sustainably changing small tradersʹ harassment behaviors – A theoretical framework

The goal of the paper was to put forward a theoretical model for sustainably changing small tradersʹ harassment behaviors and to apply it to a destination that has been grappling with the problem for decades. One hundred and eighty-one newspaper articles, 37 annual tourism reports, and 20 other government documents were reviewed to determine Jamaicaʹs visitor harassment mitigation initiatives and activities from 1957 to 2013. Also, seven leaders from 14 of the islandʹs craft markets were interviewed to determine the effects of these programs on their constituentsʹ harassment behaviors. The archives and interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic content analysis. The case analysis revealed that while Jamaica had initiatives likely to discourage their small independent tradersʹ engagement in harassment behaviors, the initiatives developed to strengthen their knowledge of the desired less aggressive trading behaviors had deficiencies likely to limit their engagement in these behaviors. The framework had implicationsfor how measures to curtail visitor harassment are developed and tested.