More tourist arrivals expected in Guyana during July-August season

Guyana is anticipated to surpass tourists’ influx into the country for the July-August season compared to last year, despite the exit of Delta Airlines. During an exclusive interview with Guyana Times International, Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) Director Indranauth Haralsingh said the highest number of tourists was recorded in July last year as the country received 24,000 visitors while in August that year, the number was 22,000 visitors.
“This year, because of the Limacol CPL and other planned activities such as Jamzone and celebrity artistes coming to Guyana, we are looking to see by the end of July over 29,000 visitors and in August over 32,000 visitors.”
Compared to last year, the influx of tourists will be up by 115 per cent despite Delta’s exit earlier in the year. Haralsingh said all flights are currently booked and Caribbean Airlines (CAL) is also looking at putting on extra flights.
He expressed hope that Fly Jamaica will start operations towards the end of July so that it can transport tourists to the country. “So that would increase airlift and the capacity of seats and available flights to Guyana as well.”
According to the director, the exiting of Delta from Guyana has affected the influx of tourists into the country to some extent, but asserted that the slack has been picked up by CAL and Suriname airways. “Both airlines are flying now with higher numbers in terms of load factor.”
According to Haralsingh, while Delta was in the country, CAL was flying at 50/ 55 per cent load factor while currently it is flying at full capacity. He stated that the country now has healthy cross border traffic from Brazil and Suriname, which is also impacting tourists’ arrival in the country.
Subsequently, he disclosed that this is making a significant impact on hotels in the country since bookings have risen at the hotels and occupancy is very high as is usual for this period.
The spike in tourist arrivals will have a severe impact on Guyana’s economy since more jobs are being created and more foreign currency is coming into the country, Haralsingh noted.
Meanwhile, government has also approached COPA Airlines, which is based in Panama to examine the possibility of having that airline operate in and out of Guyana as well. It was also disclosed that from October, Fly Guyana Airlines will launch scheduled operations out of Guyana.