“Destination Guyana”

Over the past three years or so, Guyana’s tourism industry has undoubtedly made tremendous strides in capturing the attention of the world with its truly unique ecological, nature and adventure tourism. More and more persons are becoming aware of what the country has to offer. It is widely accepted that the tourism industry has great potential as it can contribute to the country’s development by helping to generate income, investments, foreign exchange and employment for the benefit of everyone.
Just recently a high level delegation headed by Minister of Tourism (acting) Irfaan Ali represented Guyana at the Caribbean Week in New York. That event was graced with some of the biggest names in the tourism business, and from reports gathered, the team was able to make quite an impact in selling “Destination Guyana” to the wider world.
At that forum also, the subject minister related government’s offer to the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) of land to construct and manage a Caribbean Sustainable Tourism Development Institute to cater for regional and international sustainable tourism training needs. It is expected that the proposed facility would be linked to a state-of-the-art eco-tourism resort so that theoretical training can be combined with practical experience for students.
Sustainable development is linked to environmental management and eco-tourism studies. Hence, given Guyana’s tourism product and its international profile in the area of climate change, as well as its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), the country is well positioned to make a major contribution to human resources development in this field. We view this offer as timely and generous on the part of the government of Guyana and it is hoped that the regional authorities would reach out and grab the opportunity.
Not only has Guyana shown that it is serious about playing its part in developing the region’s tourism sector, the authorities have announced plans to launch a massive “Destination Guyana” campaign out of Trinidad and Tobago.
We reported earlier that Minister Ali met with representatives from a Trinidad company on the island a few days ago to discuss the launch of the campaign. This is a good initiative as it is aimed at encouraging more persons from the twin-island republic to vacation in Guyana. And certainly this facility should be explored with other countries where there is a lucrative tourism market.
Of course tremendous progress has been made in relation to making Guyana a destination of choice, but there is still a long road ahead before we can safely say “we have arrived”. For example, there is need for more emphasis to be placed on training and capacity building locally if our services sector is to respond effectively to the growing number of tourists coming to Guyana. The Tourism Ministry has been doing some training but this is not enough. Training and capacity building should be done in a more rigid, and comprehensive manner and must be continuous. And here is where we believe that the private sector has a crucial role to play.
Further, there is need to put Guyana on show at major international trade fairs. Through this avenue the country would get the kind of exposure that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. Having said that, to date, more than 100 international tour companies are pro-actively selling “Destination Guyana” which is critical to tourism development and growth.
Additionally, the authorities should seek to have more travel stories written about our tourism product in major international publications. In essence, Guyana must be featured around the world as a fantastic birding and wildlife tourist destination among other notable features. To their credit, the Tourism Ministry and Guyana Tourism Authority have been engaged in a campaign to diversify the country’s tourism product by exploring new frontiers and ensuring tourism is explored in a sustainable manner.
Notwithstanding the challenges in terms of funding for international publicity and like manner, 2011 has seen a number of notable new investments to add to the visitor’s experience. And both the government and private sector must take some credit for these successes while at the same time continue to look at ways in which “Destination Guyana” could be made more attractive to the rest of the world.