Tourism minister confident of Guyana winning CTO Awards

Six Guyanese tourism organisations are up for possible recognition following their nomination for the prestigious Sustainable Tourism Award (STA) at this year’s Caribbean Tourism Organisation’s 14th Annual Caribbean Conference on Sustainable Tourism Development (STC-14).

The event will be hosted in Trinidad and Tobago, from April 15-18 under the theme “Keeping the right balance: Enhancing destination sustainability through products, partnerships, and profitability.”
The six companies; Karanambu, Conservation International (CI) Guyana, Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society (GMTCS,) Aranaputa, National Trust and Atta Lodge were nominated by the Tourism Ministry, and Tourism Minister (acting) Irfaan Ali, is confident that given the potency of the Guyanese eco-tourism prod¬uct, that victory in all six cat¬egories is inevitable.
“You know Guyana hosted that STC last year and we won a number of awards… this year Guyana is sending six nominations, and we are hoping that we can win all six categories because we think that our product is the strongest,” Minister Ali said. He said that winning is important as it sends “an important message to the international community, to the international tourists and groups of tourists that look at eco-adventure, nature adventure and look at sustainable tourism, that really in the region, the haven of sustainable tourism resides in Guyana, and we are confident that we can take away all six of these awards this year, and continue this progressive frontier of not only advancing of our eco-tourism product, but remaining the most outstanding sustainable tourism destination.”
Karanambu was nominated for the Excellence in Sustainable Tourism Award, CI for the Destination Stewardship Award, GMTCS for the Biodiversity Conservation Award, Aranaputa for the Community Benefit Award, National Trust for the Heritage Protection Award and Atta Lodge for the Sustainable Accommodation Award.
Minister Ali explained that the organisations and companies chosen for nomination “all fit into a very tight criteria of ensuring that their product is sustainable, that there is no damage to the environment and that they integrate the environment in the development of their product.”
Guyana won three of the five top tourism awards at the 13th Sustainable Tourism Conference which was hosted in Guyana, from April 15-18, 2012 under the theme, ‘Keeping the right balance: Sustaining our resources.’
Then, Guyana’s Rupununi region won the 2012 Caribbean Excellence in Sustainable Tourism Award; the Community Benefit Award was presented to the Iwokrama International Centre and the Biodiversity Award was won by Guyana’s Mangrove Reserve Women Producers’ Project. (GINA)