Participants of Go-Invest’s Guyana Expo Trade show at the end of last month in Florida, USA say poor organizing and failure to heed their input led to it being a fiasco, which had less than 100 attendees over the three-day period.
“It was a great embarrassment for us and all the participants returned distressed and broke. It was a tragedy all because the big ones mean to do what they want to do and planned poorly for the event,” a participant, who requested anonymity told Stabroek News in an interview.
The participant, like over 50 others, left Guyana last month to participate in the investment exposition organized by Go-Invest in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and by extension the Government of Guyana. The government facilitated the collaboration with Broward College and Florida State Representative of District 95 Hazel Rogers and the county’s Mayor Barbara Sharif. It was held in the Broward County College’s auditorium from October 30 to November 1. Other partnering agencies included Broward County Office of Economic and Small Business Development, Enterprise Florida, the Greater Caribbean Ameri-can Chamber of Com-merce of Florida and the Global Trade Chamber.
While Go-Invest officials had held a press conference here prior to the start of the expo, the agency has said nothing about its success or lack thereof since it ended on November 1st.
The categories of creative products on show at the Florida event included home accessories, wooden sculpture, leather products, fashion garments, pro-cessed foods (pepper sauces, spices, etc.), furniture, decking, costume jewellery, basketry, and Tibisiri craft.
Participants this newspaper spoke with asked not to be named because they said they fear victimization and marginalization from future investment events.
One craft vendor said she was upset because Go-Invest offered little guidance and help knowing it was her first time attending an overseas event of that nature.
The woman said all participants had to pay their own return airfare to Florida, hotel fees, travelling expenses and food for the event and she feels that not much effort was put into ensuring that minimal monies were spent. “They say that it’s a Go-Invest initiative okay, but Go-Invest just tell us here about it …they sell it as it was this paradise. ‘You will get US dollars for your products much more than you get here, you can establish overseas markets and in no time see your business boom’ was what they tell us. Girlfriend, let me tell you every cent you had to find for everything and we ain’t make back one not a one,” one woman lamented.
“The hotel cost over US$120 per day and you still had to take transportation every day to and from the venue. When we found out, but it was too late we could have gotten a US$50 a day room within walking distance of the school and that’s just the beginning,” she added.
The woman explained that each participant had to pay Go-Invest a US$250 booth fee and they later learned that the venue was given free to the Govern-ment of Guyana as part of the package with the US officials.
Another participant explained that while the venue setting was immaculate there were no attendees or buyers and they were aghast to learn that even the students of the college were not aware that there was a trade fair being run in the Omni auditorium of the North Campus. “It is to show that it was poorly marketed, poorly everything I can think of. Imagine we are there and after day two we see nobody we start hustle going out and seeing how best we can invite the students. [The students] were shocked to know there was an expo with such lovely craft products right there,” the participant said.
One participant detailed the story of her friend who sobbed uncontrollably at the end of the event as she explained to the delegation that her husband borrowed money to “give her the break” in selling her wares. The woman did not garner any sales and had racked up over US$3,000 in capital into the business never to retrieve any profits.
There were also tales of persons who could not afford Mc Donald’s cheapest meals as they thought that the hotel would have been providing food. “It was a disaster to watch as everyone hang their heads and return disappointed,” one participant stated.
They all said that if their input was not just for “paper sake” and the organizers had had meaningful planning with them the event would not have been the flop it was. Some opined that hosting the event to coincide with Halloween was wrong as they did not think persons would have given up their plans for that holiday to visit their booths. There was also a Broward Boat Show which many other residents attended.
“They don’t listen. They bring you to a table to say to the public look consultations are being held but they have in their head what they want to do already and you can talk cheese, their minds are set,” the vendor said.
“As far as I am concerned this expo was more political than anything. They used us to decorate the auditorium and say ‘Look all the things we are doing look all the things we are producing’ but helping us to find markets for those things no one cares about that, not these politicians,” the participant added.
