Hailing the event as a success, which saw over 20 persons indicating they wanted to invest in Guyana, the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest) yesterday dismissed criticisms by participants that the Guyana Expo Trade show held in Florida last month was a flop.
The local investment agency also said that participants were told beforehand that their attending the event was a risk as Go-Invest could not guarantee sales or attendees.
“The participants knew and were told it’s a risk so you decide if you want to participate. They also knew that if the items were not sold it had nothing to do with Go-Invest,” Head of the agency, Keith Burrowes told Stabroek News yesterday.
“We cannot give you any commitment that your items will be sold… If we did all that we could and people didn’t turn up there is nothing we can do. We don’t make people turn up,” Burrowes added.
Interestingly, while Go-Invest held a press briefing prior to the expo, it convened nothing after the event to report on its impact. Yesterday’s statement by Burrowes was the first by a Go-Invest official since the expo ended on November 1st.
His comments came in the wake of participants of the trade show, which was held at the Broward County College Auditorium from October 31 to November 1, saying that 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, told Stabroek News.
The participant, like some 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. Other partnering agencies included Broward County Office of Economic and Small Business Development, Enterprise Florida, the Greater Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce of Florida and the Global Trade Chamber.
Participants detailed gloomy experiences and said that Go-Invest should absorb some of the blame for the event’s failure.
It was a success
However Burrowes said that the event should not be described as a failure and offered his analysis on why. “If you have 50 persons and 5 or ten come and say it was not good you can’t say failure was massive.
It was a success…I got about 20 to 30 persons who indicated that they wanted to invest. Even if you got two that was a success,” he said.
“There is the case where they built relationships so even if is building relationships that is success. So it’s not only the selling, it’s other results,” he added.
He stated that success should not be weighed on the number of persons who attended as his office did its best in marketing the event. This included paying for many advertisements, through various mediums in Florida. “Many of the payments I signed myself for advertisements over there,” he said.
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 the minimum was 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.
Booth fee
She pointed out 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 Government of Guyana as part of the package with the US officials.
Burrowes said the truth of the agreement was not told in its entirety.
One of the Florida representatives for the expo, Wesley Kirton, defended the input made from his end saying that he personally went out of his way to ensure that the participants’ experience was fruitful. He explained that while the hotel was $120 per day four persons stayed in one room, which meant that each person paid US$30.
He said that transportation to the event was provided each day and from his analysis most of the participants benefited from the event. “To say that this was a massive failure was untrue and unfair to people like me and many others that worked so hard in ensuring they were comfortable and investment opportunities for the future, long-term investments had,” he said.
“I am disappointed and people should not do that. It‘s not true. I‘ll be honest we didn’t get the kind of crowd, Guyanese and others we would have wanted to see also but we were productive. It was not an event like a flea market… but we got the people who we wanted to get there. Our focus was to get business people there and we got them,” he added.
He said that maybe Go-Invest did not explain to participants that it was not a selling event as US Customs and sales protocols would first have to be met.
Kirton also stated that many of the participants were able to meet potential investors, arranged by himself and other officials in Florida.
Turning to the US$250 paid by the participants to Go-Invest, Kirton said that the venue was free and the issue of charges should be taken up with Go-Invest.
Burrowes admitted that while the venue was free Go-Invest charged the $250 for each chair at the event. However, he did not explain what the monies were used for, but said he will investigate and get the details.
He said too that next week a full comprehensive report on the event will be compiled, where all participants will meet with him and give their evaluation perspectives and he will share its content with Stabroek News.
