Insufficient investment in marketing Guyana’s strengths as a tourist destination and failure over several years to implement a regulatory framework and oversight mechanisms to ensure operational compliance with standards and safety considerations continue to plague the “evident potential” of the country’s tourism sector, one of the leading investors in the industry told Stabroek Business in an interview earlier this week.
“What we really ought to be doing during Tourism Awareness Month is seriously reflecting on the slow pace of the growth of the sector and contemplating those deficiencies which must be remedied if tourism is to realize its full potential as a contributor to the country’s economic growth. Ironically Guyana is ideally positioned to make a mark as a regional tourist destination. That, however, will only happen if we create the marketing, physical and regulatory infrastructure which the sector requires,” Chief Executive Officer of the Roraima Group of Companies Captain Gerry Gouveia told Stabroek Business.
Asked to prioritize the deficiencies that have placed constraints on the growth of Guyana’s tourism sector, Gouveia said official failure to make adequate investments in promoting Guyana abroad has been the “key binding constraint” to the sector’s growth. “This is nothing that I have not said before. We need to invest more in promoting Guyana to targeted external markets not only as a tourism destination but as a country with a favourable investment climate. That process has been moving far too slowly. In fact it has been struggling,” Gouveia said.
Gouveia, whose integrated group of companies includes a domestic airline, hotel, hospitality and restaurant services and a nature resort, Arrow Point, told Stabroek Business that a plan for the “targeted marketing” of Guyana as a visitor and investor destination must focus, first, on Guyanese in the diaspora. “We need to find ways of re-introducing those Guyanese who have been residing abroad for several years to Guyana so that, where possible, we might take advantage of their skills and their investment potential. That has to be our first objective. After that we need to target visitors from the wider Caribbean. It would make no sense not to see the rest of the Caribbean as a potential market for the tourism sector. Finally, we need to make a more global push for visitors and investors from around the world.”
And according to Gouveia far too little is being done to promote Guyana abroad through “our participation in international trade fairs in metropolitan countries which provide outstanding opportunities for marketing the country. Frankly, our attendance at international trade fairs and other such events has been far too inconsistent. We need to be looking at countries in the region, like Jamaica, where the marketing budget exceeds US$100 million annually.”
Meanwhile, Gouveia said that if the tourism sector is to develop to its full potential, key local institutions like the Ministry of Tourism and the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) needed to be strengthened. “In the case of the GTA, I believe that the organization continues to be under-resourced and under-funded so that it is not particularly well-equipped to do all that it should be doing to advance the interests of the sector. As far as the Tourism Ministry is concerned, and this is my personal opinion, I think that the Tourism and Consumer Affairs portfolios need to be separated. There is no connection there and I believe that the focus on one portfolio tends to detract from attention to the other.”
And Gouveia, a former president of the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) told Stabroek Business that the protracted failure on the part of government to establish a regulatory framework for the country’s tourism industry had resulted in a profusion of “irregularities and lawlessness” which could eventually ruin the country’s reputation as a tourism destination. “We are seeing evidence of operators in some of the sub-sectors of the industry, including hospitality, travel agency and tours in which operators with sub-standard resources and infrastructure are providing services to tourists. These services ought to be provided by establishments that meet approved standards and that are officially licensed to provide the services that they do. The longer we take to set up a regulatory and monitoring framework the more we will run the risk of unduly exposing our visitors to poor service which can sometimes involve risks. Of course, there is also the continual risk that our reputation as a tourist destination will become compromised.”
He said the country’s “ongoing inability to maintain a capital city that could serve as a poster board for the country’s tourist industry” has now reached the point of “a national disgrace.” He said that the sooner the country moves ahead with local government reforms that put capable people and efficient systems in place “and hold those responsible for the proper upkeep of the city responsible,” the sooner Guyana will be able to set its tourist industry on a better footing.
