Using agriculture as a way of attracting tourists to various destinations in Guyana might sound like a plan, but some stakeholders might have differing views on how it can be achieved.
In Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), there is one such individual who believes that key infrastructural and utility services must be developed before such initiatives can materialize in his community and wider region.
During a media visit organised by the Tourism Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG), owner of Barakatt Lumber, Edward Barakatt explained that there are many aspects of infrastructural development which needs to be fixed. The main factor would be a central medical facility in the case of an emergency. Presently, persons in need of selective medical treatment are medevaced to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). The Charity Hospital is equipped to handle only minor cases on the Essequibo Coast.
“They got to develop the infrastructure. You can’t just bring tourists. For instance, you have to have a proper hospital in Essequibo. [If] tourists come around and somebody have an accident or something go wrong, by the time they reach Georgetown, they might die. First, you got to look at health, electricity, water, transportation…All the years we struggling to get a hospital and its ridiculous. You got to fly people out to Georgetown. They got [one at] Charity but that’s like a first-aid center,” he expressed.
Transportation also needs major improvement, along with the water quality and supply. However, Barakatt cited another concern – the exorbitant prices to visit these locations. While the traffic to Guyana is high, the business man noted that many of these are not tourists.
“Most of the people coming to this country is [migrated] Guyanese coming to see their relatives,” he shared.
Barakatt’s Lumber caters to a variety of operations involving different species of wood from Guyana’s forested lands. He employs several persons to carry out daily operations at the facility.
In August, Business Minister Haimraj Rajkumar had emphasized the need to push agriculture and tourism, insisting that Guyana’s future is dependent on the combination of the two sectors.
He had made these statements at the launch of the 15th Annual Berbice Expo and Trade Fair was recently launched under the theme ‘Promoting a favorable business and investment climate’.
“We are going in the right direction,” Rajkumar added while noting that the future of Guyana depends heavily on its agriculture and soon to be the oil and gas sector.
“We will continue to promote these two sectors; tourism and agriculture so in October we will be having an agritourism drive where we will be sensitising persons on how they can use agritourism the develop themselves. Region Six has the potential and has been contributing in agricultural sector. All we have to do now is the bridge the two sectors and make one big product; agritourism.”
He also disclosed that the agritourism Expo would assist with the developing a green tourism sector.
“With this coming on stream the private sector will play an integral role in tourism and in agriculture. They will have to come together to plan and plot a way forward so that all the players will be able to have a product that persons in Guyana and those abroad can benefit from,” Rajkumar added.
