“I believe that the President’s Low Carbon Development Strategy will help maintain the integrity of the rainforest and the wildlife which in turn will protect the tourism industry.” Stephenson told Stabroek Business.
In an exclusive interview with this newspaper on Monday, Stephenson, who was recently elected as Head of the local tourism body which he helped establish in 1991 said that despite the global downturn in the tourism sector occasioned by the prevailing financial and economic crisis Guyana’s tourism sector was well positioned for growth in the future.
Stephenson’s upbeat assessment of the current state and potential of Guyana’s tourism industry presents a striking contrast to recent gloomy assessments of the state of the sector elsewhere in the Caribbean. “The levels of tourist arrivals to Guyana are good but they need to grow. With correct marketing, with good product, with protected product under the Low Carbon Development Strategy, with high standards and good value for money, the industry will grow naturally. I am very optimistic that within the next five years the numbers will be remarkably different,” Stephenson told Stabroek Business.
“There has been a worldwide downturn in the tourism sector. This is not something that is unique to Guyana. It also applies in Europe the United States and in the rest of the Caribbean. The tourism sector internationally has gone through a difficult period and that, unfortunately, will continue to be the case for some time. That, however, is not the case in Guyana. Guyana is in a totally unique position in terms of its wildlife and its rainforest which has remained intact. Worldwide, that is a very unique position to be in. Over time our tourism will definitely continue to develop and attract its own market,” Stephenson said.
And according to the UK-born Guyanese hotelier the Caribbean will have to urgently revisit its traditional model, its traditional model of sun, sand and sea. “For years that market has been over-priced. Additionally, tourism standards have fallen over the years. While the Caribbean was a traditional destination of choice for European and North American visitors the hotel and leisure product has not really gone with the times.
There are new destinations in the areas such as Africa which are emerging. Cuba is a sleeping giant and when Cuba opens up the traditional Caribbean destinations will get a big surprise,” Stephenson said.
Stephenson told Stabroek Business that the recent imposition of an additional tax on airline tickets for persons flying to the Caribbean had dealt a further blow to an already struggling Caribbean tourism industry. “I think it is a terrible blow to the region and, frankly, I am astonished. If you buy a ticket and fly to the United States from Gatwick or Heathrow there is no extra tax. If you fly to Barbados, St. Lucia or Trinidad you get slapped with an extra tax. I do not see tax being applied internationally, across the board. I have no idea as to what the rationale is behind the extra tax,” he said.
And Stephenson told Stabroek Business that he believed that the difficulties associated with securing a clear picture of the performance of Guyana’s tourism industry lay in the varying and sometimes conflicting sources of statistical information on tourism. “Part of the problem with statistics on the sector is that the sources of information on the industry are independent and separate. It might give us a better overall picture if all of this information is collected, analyzed and reviewed in one central arena then disseminated to members of the sector in an orderly and informative manner. That might clear up some possible conflicts and misunderstandings as to how the sector is performing,” Stephenson said.
“I’m not sure as to how much detailed analysis is done in order to break down visitor arrivals into tourists, business people, regional traffic and international traffic. Once we can access that kind of information I think we would all get a better picture as to where the industry is. There is a need for processing,” Stephenson added.
Stephenson told Stabroek Business that he believed that it was critical that the Guyana tourism sector attach greater importance to the efficient and effective management of data. “The collection and dissemination of statistical information is an integral part of the process of the growth and development of Guyana’s tourism sector. We are at the stage where this information needs to be analyzed in more detail then shared to strategize in terms of marketing the tourism product.
That information needs to be compiled, analyzed and shared for the benefit of the sector. There is a lot of information to be collected and analyzed and the three agencies, the Tourism Ministry, the Guyana Tourism Authority and THAG need to apply their resources to that task collectively,” Stephenson said.
And despite evidence of reduced hotel occupancy rates and sale of local hotels and guest houses Stephenson told Stabroek Business that he remained upbeat about the future of the tourism sector here. “We are not like the agricultural sector. We cannot plant a seed and get results in six months time. Our business takes years to develop. It is long term investment and we have to be very patient and professional about it,” he said.
The appearance of several hotels for sale on the local market has given rise to the view that the significantly accelerated growth of the sector ahead of the 2007 Cricket World Cup, some of which was mandated by the regional cricket boards, may have significantly exceeded demand. “It is true that there was a lot of bedroom stock created for Cricket World Cup in 2007. When you have such a dramatic increase over a very short period it takes time to develop markets to fill these bedrooms. Some have succeeded and some have not. We can overanalyze that situation until we are blue in the face. Unfortunately, in the leisure tourism industry you have the chicken and egg situation. You do not get the egg without the chicken and vice versa. Something has to happen first and in this case the hotels have happened first,” Stephenson said.
Asked to outline the agenda of his presidency of THAG, Stephenson said that he proposed to seek to better equip the entity to play its role in the sector. “I propose to streamline the agency to have it focus on some of the areas that we have discussed. We have to build our membership and we have to deliver a professional service to that membership. Additionally, we have to rebuild their enthusiasm and their participation in THAG. I believe that we can get THAG back to where it was a number of years ago.” According to Stephenson part of the focus of his presidency of THAG will also include the pursuit of closer collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and the GTA in every area of the development of the sector and importantly in the collection, analysis and dissemination of information on the tourism sector.
“We have to work closer together. We have to structure more targeted and focused engagements in order to determine collectively how we move the sector forward,” Stephenson said.
