hmmm
Honestly I doubt anything would have changed their experience. Because they are white and tourists.
If anyone thinks they can blend in with the locals they are fooling themselves. Whether you speak patois or not there are still so many 'ways', 'looks', sayings that you have to be born and raised to comprehend them.
Since my first trip in 1978 much as changed. Unless the jamaican government grow some balls and starts making the off shore investors a) build schools and fund them, b) upgrade the infrastructure, c) build hospitals and fund them and d) pay off shore wages...the country will always be poor.
I also fear for the country as all the eggs are in one basket there...tourism. Bamboo is their best resource and is coveted world wide. IMO that's where the investment should be made in Bamboo fields.
Unless the locals are allowed to leave I see no end to the aggressiveness towards tourists.
After building two houses there I know I would never live there permanently. When I retire we will live in Jamaica for 3 months in the winter and the rest in Canada where there is health care