The immediate-term expansion plans of the local travel and interior tours entity North West Group of Companies is but one of a number of illustrations of the positive spin-offs of the country’s gold-mining sector.
Established in 2009, the North West Group of Companies is a multi-service entity that partners with Travel Span to offer international bookings; tour packages, including the favoured Demerara Distillers Ltd El Dorado Rum Tour to visitors to the country and to provide interior charters primarily to Baramita in
Region One.
Mandy Corlette, the company’s Public Relations Officer told Stabroek Business on Tuesday that North West owes its decision to undertake a major expansion initiative this year to its success in securing its own fair share of the market for miners and mining equipment that is constantly being moved to Baramita.
Mondays and Fridays are the favoured days of the week for traffic to Baramita from Georgetown. Those two days, and Wednesdays for good measure, are the days on which North West partners with Golden Arrow Airways to move men and material to the Amerindian settlement.
With somewhere between eight and ten charter operators competing for passengers and cargo Corlette says North West is almost permanently preoccupied with securing such competitive advantage as it can. On a North West charter to Baramita passengers are offered a snack, not a commonplace perk on air travel to interior locations. For good measure the service includes a free ten-pound baggage allowance. The company goes further; for every ten round trips that a passenger makes he or she is given a free ticket.
The marketing blitz on which the company has embarked would appear to have paid off and Corlette says the sustained growth has encouraged North West to embark on its first major expansion programme that will see a suite of offices growing beyond its current single location in Room 206 of Buddy’s Housing and Development Building on Brickdam. The company’s other three offices will be located at the Park View Hotel at Farm on the East Coast Demerara and at two other unnamed locations at Linden and Vreed-en-Hoop.
The price of gold has slipped over many months and while Corlette does not deny that there could be challenges ahead she still believes that the sector is “good for growth” that is spreading to other sectors of the economy, not least the interior travel sector.
The company’s Chief Executive Officer Bruce Jupiter has targeted May as the month in which to ‘kick off’ the expansion programme though Corlette says that the expansion-related activities are likely to expand further into 2015. Beyond the opening of new offices outside of the capital North West’s growth plans also include the expansion of its charter service to Matthew’s Ridge, Port Kaituma and Mabaruma. Uncertainties – particularly ones relating to the future of the gold-mining sector – may lie ahead but the North West Group of Companies is determined to make economic hay while the sun shines.
