NEW YORK -- Police in the Jamaican resort town of Negril are
searching for a missing travel writer from New York who disappeared
while on a press trip hosted by Sandals Resorts.
The Negril police began the search for Claudia Kirschhoch, 29,
after she failed to check out of the Beaches Negril hotel on June
1.
Police said Kirschhoch's passport, plane ticket and personal
items were found in her room.
"We have little to go by; however, we're getting bits and pieces
of information that we're pursuing," said a police spokesman in
Negril.
Kirschhoch, a resident of Queens, N.Y., and an editor for the
Frommer's Travel Guides in New York, arrived in Montego Bay May 24
with three other writers to take part in a press trip to Cuba
hosted by Sandals.
Instead, the trip was canceled that day when Cuban visas could
not be obtained, said Leo Lambert, a Sandals spokesman in Montego
Bay.
Lambert said Sandals invited the writers to stay in Negril at
its Beaches property, and that Kirschhoch and another journalist
accepted. The other writer left Jamaica on May 27.
Lambert said Kirschhoch was booked at Sandals Negril from May 25
to June 1.
He said Kirschhoch "has not been seen by employees of the hotel
since May 30."
Lambert said Kirschhoch asked to leave Jamaica earlier than June
1 and that Sandals "was able to secure a seat [for Kirschhoch] on
Air Jamaica on May 27, but she decided to stay at the resort until
June 1."
Kirschhoch's family was to arrive in Jamaica last week.
"Claudia is a very open and trusting person who likes to seek
out a place's local color," said Deborah Martin, Claudia
Kirschhoch's sister, by phone from the family's home in New Jersey.
"She is also a very savvy traveler, which is why this whole thing
is so disturbing."
Martin said the family is offering a reward of 50,000 Jamaican
dollars ($1,250 U.S.) through the U.S. Embassy in Kingston.