CVOA is an expert source for Jamaica Villas

CVOA is proud to work with villa owners and agents to offer the very best in Jamaica villa rental. We offer a wide selection of villas all over this beautiful island.

Jamaica's diverse landscape calls to travelers of all types. Miles of white and black sand beaches, beautiful lagoons, winding rivers, captivating waterfalls and the verdant Blue Mountains offer peaceful places of relaxation or an adventure of a lifetime. Dive, Snorkel, raft, surf, hike, golf or just sunbathe in the natural beauty of Jamaica. Savor the tastes the island is famous for; Blue Mountain Coffee, Red Stripe beer, rum and Jerk Chicken. Colorful, lively street markets filled with Reggae and Calypso music are sure to lift your spirits.

The vibrant, fun-loving and warm people of Jamaica await your visit! You will love the freedom and peace a Jamaican villa rental offers. Choose the perfect villa for your dream vacation on Jamaica from CVOA.

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles situated in the Caribbean Sea, with a width as much as 50 mi (80 kilometers) and a length of 146 mi (234 kilometers). It is about 90 mi (145 kilometers) south of Cuba, 120 mi (190 kilometers) west of the island of Hispaniola, on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are situated and 385 mi (620 kilometers) northeast of the Central American mainland. The island was named Xaymaca, meaning either the "Land of Wood and Water" or the "Land of Springs," by its native Arawakan-speaking Taíno inhabitants. Previously a Spanish territory known as Santiago, it later became the British West Indies Crown colony of Jamaica. Following Canada and the United States, it is the third most populous English speaking country in the Americas.

Jamaican History

Between 4000 and 1000 BC the original Arawak or Taino people from South America first settled on Jamaica. Some claim that these settlers survived for a while and others claim they became basically extinct after contact with Europeans. Today, there is very little evidence of the Arawak culture and the Jamaican National Heritage Trust is trying to discover and record any trace of the Arawaks.

Christopher Columbus first landed on Jamaica in 1494 and claimed it for Spain, afterward using it as his family's private estate. In 1655, the English Admiral William Penn (father of William Penn of Pennsylvania) and General Venables, took Jamaica by force. Jamaica grew to be one of the world's leading sugar exporting nations during its first 200 years of English rule, producing over 77,000 tons of sugar yearly between 1820 and 1824. This was accomplished through the enormous use of imported African slave labor. Early in the 1800s, to find other cheap labor, the British imported Indian and Chinese indentured servants after the abolition of the slave trade. Today, there are many descendants of these Chinese and Indian indentured servants living in Jamaica .

Due to the United Kingdom's heavy reliance on slavery, by the beginning of the 19th century blacks outnumbered whites by a ratio of almost 20 to one, leading to a continuous threat of uprising. Slavery was formally abolished in 1834, following a series of revolts. It was not until 1838 that full emancipation from chattel slavery declared.

Several botanical gardens were established during the 1800's. Included among these are the Castleton Garden in 1862 (established to replace the Bath Garden of the late 1770s where breadfruit brought to Jamaica by Captain William Bligh was planted), the Cinchona Plantation during1868 and the Hope Garden in 1874.

Before going on to become Chief Justice in Kenya, Sir Horace Hector Hearne became Chief Justice and Keeper of the Records in Jamaica in 1945 and sat in the Supreme Court, Kingston until 1950/1951.

Jamaica became a province in the Federation of the West Indies, a federation among all of the British West Indies, in 1958 after slowly proceeding toward independence from the United Kingdom. Full independence was attained in 1962 by leaving the federation.

Under conservative governments led successively by Prime Ministers Alexander Bustamante, Donald Sangster and Hugh Shearer, Jamaica showed strong economic growth averaging about six percent annually in its first decade of independence. The increase was brought about by strong investments in tourism, the manufacturing industry, bauxite/alumina and agriculture to a lesser extent. In 1972, the initial optimism of the first ten years faded after a change in government to the PNP - People's National Party. Falling behind economically, the island's gross national product fell in 1980 to about twenty-five percent below the level formerly attained in 1972. Large fiscal shortages along with increasing local and foreign debt, resulted in the invitation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) financing from the USA and others, also the imposition of IMF austerity measures (with a greater than 25% interest rate per year).

Jamaica's economic condition continued to deteriorate into the mid 1980s, aggravated by a reduction in tourism, the leaving of Reynolds Jamaica Mines Ltd from the Jamaican industry, the closure of the first (Alpart) and third (Alcoa) largest alumina producers and a significant decrease in production by the second largest (Alcan). Although during the 1980s escalating crime and petty theft began to weigh on Jamaica, the island was still a prosperous nation.

Spanish Town in the parish of St. Catherine, the site of the old Spanish colonial capital, was the early capital of Jamaica. The Spanish named the town Santiago de la Vega, but when the English captured the island in 1655, most of the old Spanish capital was burned by the invading troops. The town was rebuilt by the English and renamed Spanish Town. It remained the capital until 1872, when under questionable circumstances, the city of Kingston was named capital of Jamaica.

Culture

The island enjoys a rich cultural heritage and occupies a strong global presence despite being a small nation. Originating in Jamaica's vibrant popular urban recording industry are the musical genres of dub, mento, reggae, rocksteady, ska and more recently, dancehall and ragga. Bob Marley, internationally known reggae musician, was born in Jamaica and is very respected there. Many other internationally known artists hail from the island including; Beenie Man, Beres Hammond, Bounty Killer, Buju Banton, Bunny Wailer, Capleton, Dennis Brown, Desmond Dekker, Grace Jones, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, Sean Paul, Shabba Ranks, Shaggy, Supercat, I Wayne and many others. Black Uhuru, Chalice Reggae Band, Fab Five, Inner Circle, Morgan Heritage, Third World Band, and others are famous band artist groups originating from Jamaica. The genre jungle emerged from London's Jamaican diaspora. The birth of hip-hop in New York also owed much to the city's Jamaican community.

Cultural life is strongly influenced by Christianity today. This is especially seen in music which most people learn at church and biblical references are often used in popular songs. It is common for musicians to be playing dancehall music on Saturday night and church music on Sunday morning.

The Back to Africa movement or Rastafari movement, was founded in Jamaica. It is the belief that Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is God incarnate, the returned black messiah came to take the lost Twelve Tribes of Israel back to live with him in Holy Mount Zion in a world of love, harmony and perfect peace. A convert to the faith, Bob Marley spread the message of Rastafari to the world. Throughout the world, there are now estimated to be more than a million Rastafarians.

The island has been repeatedly used as a setting in the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, who lived in Jamaica. These include Doctor No, For Your Eyes Only, Live and Let Die, Octopussy and The Man with the Golden Gun. Also, the James Bond novel Casino Royale uses a Jamaica based cover. Doctor No is the only Bond film to have been set in Jamaica to date. Jamaica was the filming location for the fictional island of San Monique in Live and Let Die.

One of the most popular films to represent Jamaica is the American film Cocktail, starring Tom Cruise. Jimmy Cliff stars as a frustrated (and psychopathic) reggae-musician who plummets into a murderous crime spree in the 1970s cops-and-robbers musical film, The Harder They Come, which takes a look at delinquent youth in Jamaica.

In the 1950s, Errol Flynn lived in Port Antonio with Patrice Wymore his third wife. He popularized raft trips down rivers on bamboo rafts and was responsible for developing tourism to this area.

Demographics and Economy

The island is a mixed, free-market economy with state enterprises as well as private sector businesses. Agriculture, financial and insurance services, manufacturing, mining, and tourism make up the major sectors of the Jamaican economy. Taking the lead as foreign exchange earners are mining and tourism.

Since the early 1980s, Jamaica, supported by multilateral financial institutions, has looked to implement structural reforms directed at developing private sector activity and increasing the role of market forces in resource distribution. Since 1991, the Government has followed a program of economic stabilization and liberalization by cutting tariffs, floating the exchange rate, reducing inflation, removing exchange controls, removing restrictions on foreign investment and stabilizing the Jamaican currency. Attention has been given to greater openness to trade and financial flows, market liberalization, maintaining strict fiscal discipline and reduction in the size of government. This has resulted in a large share of the economy being returned to private sector ownership through privatization and divestment programs.

Focus on tight fiscal and monetary policies contributed to a controlled reduction in the rate of inflation with the introduction of the macroeconomic stabilization program in 1991. The yearly inflation rate has decreased from a high of 80.2% in 1991 to 7.9% in 1998. With a long-term goal of bringing inflation in line with that of its major trading partners, the Jamaican Government remains committed to lowering inflation.

Following a time of continuous development from 1985 to 1995, real GDP decreased by 1.8% and 2.4% in 1996 and 1997, respectively. The decrease in GDP in 1996 and 1997 was primarily due to considerable problems in the financial sector together with a severe island-wide drought (the worst in 70 years) in 1997 that greatly reduced agricultural production. In 1997, nominal GDP was approximately J$220,556.2 million (US$6,198.9 million based on the average yearly exchange rate of the period).

In 1997 the economy was marked by high levels of private capital inflows, relative stability in the foreign exchange market and low levels of import growth.

Jamaican economy is recovering as shown by recent economic performance. Signaling the first positive growth rate in the sector since January 1997, agricultural production, an important engine of growth, increased 15.3% in third quarter of 1998 compared to the corresponding period in 1997. CAN WE JUST DELETE THIS Bauxite and alumina production increased 5.5% from January to December, 1998 compared to the corresponding period in 1997. January's bauxite production recorded a 7.1% increase relative to January 1998 and continued expansion of alumina production through 2009 is planned by Alcoa [3]. The largest foreign exchange earner, tourism, also showed improvement with Paul Pennycooke as Jamaica's Director of Tourism. The island saw a growth in tourist arrivals with an overall increase of 8.5% in tourism earnings in 1998 when compared to the corresponding period in 1997.

There can be found a wide variety of commercial and industrial activities on Jamaica. The island's construction industry is completely self-sufficient, with professional technical standards and guidance. Jamaica has a substantial amount of industrial engineering, light manufacturing; including furniture manufacturing, metal roofing and metal fabrication. Found in the larger urban areas are advanced education activities, computer software and data processing, food and beverage processing, glassware manufacturing, insurance underwriting, music and recording along with printing and publishing. The aviation industry is able to accomplish most routine aircraft maintenance, except for heavy structural repairs.

Jamaican economy has undergone a period of staunch growth since the first quarter of 2006. With inflation for the 2006 calendar year down to 6.0% and unemployment down to 8.9%, the nominal GDP increased by an exceptional 2.9%. Contributing to this figure was an investment program in utility infrastructure and island transportation including profits in the mining, service and tourism sectors. Predictions for 2007 show an even greater possibility for economic growth with all estimates over 3.0% and limited only by public policies and urban crime .

As one of the pioneering members, Jamaica became part of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) in 2006.

Compromising about 90.9 percent of Jamaica's demographics, the population is mostly made up of those from African descent. Following are other populations on Jamaica; Mixed 7.3%, East Indian 1.3%, Chinese 0.2%, White 0.2% and other 0.1%. Jamaica has seen a steady increase in immigration from countries such as St. Lucia, Colombia, China and many other areas of South Asia and the Caribbean.

English is the official language of Jamaica. Jamaican Creole or informally patois pronounced (potwah), is more commonly spoken by most of the population. Although the most obvious influence on patois has been "The Queen's English" or British English, it includes syntax and words from various African languages, Arawak, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and East Indian languages. giving evidence of the long standing mixing peoples on the island. Patois differs from English in grammar, pronunciation, syntax and nominal orthography, having many intonations to signify meaning and mood. Characteristics of the language include pronouncing /õ/ as [d] and /?/ as [t] and omitting some initial consonant sounds, mainly /h/. Similar to the debates in the United States with Ebonics, some linguists classify Jamaican Creole as a separate language, while others consider it to be an English dialect.