This article uses the UNESCO World Heritage designationof Jamaican reggae as its starting point for a critical discussion of the perceptions of culture and authenticity within the tourist industry. Research shows that cultural heritage sites are prone to economic and cultural exploitation, as tourist industry actors use the UNESCO label for commercial benefit. In my study, I highlight how these tendencies already exist within the reggae-tourism business in Jamaica. Using material from Jamaica Tourist Board’s Instagram account and user comments on Tripadvisor regarding the Jamaican tourist attraction “Rastafari Indigenous Village”, the paper explores how dominant colonial perceptions of “primitive cultures” and “happy natives” are visible among tourists visiting Jamaica, and used by local travel companies and organisations in their marketing of tourist attractions related to reggae. My findings demonstrate how reggae tourism is entangled in processes of cultural commodification, where meaning and symbolic associations have been attached to material objects and people, making them marketable to western tourists. Accordingly, the representations of reggae culture in Jamaican tourism can be traced to colonial discourses of authenticity and exoticism, where western modernity operates as a hierarchal indicatorof power.