With Guyana’s tourism product continuing to be characterized by unfulfilled potential and unrealized ambitions, government, in its 2017 budget proposals has once again outlined undertakings that would appear to leave open the door to a more wholehearted official endorsement of the role that tourism can play in enhancing the country’s economy.
In his November 28, budget presentation, Finance Minister Winston Jordan announced that Guyana will host the twenty-fourth Inter American Congress of Ministers and High Level Authorities of Tourism, a forum which he said “serves as a platform for the promotion of sustainable development of tourism through sharing experiences, technical cooperation and bilateral engagement.”
The Congress is regarded both regionally and in the wider hemisphere as one of the showpiece tourism-related events and has customarily been hosted by countries in Latin America known for their exotic profiles, though Barbados, widely regarded as the Caribbean Community’s (Caricom) tourism mecca, hosted the twenty-second congress in 2014.
Previous congresses have focused on critical industry issues including how governments’ policies can support tourism development by creating a more robust enabling environment for the private sector, an issue that continues to arise in Guyana where government is frequently accused of paying little more than lip service to the aggressive promotion of the country’s tourism product. Over time, the forum has become a storehouse of important information on best practices with regard to how governments can most effectively work with donor agencies, the importance of building public-private partnerships as well as industry examples of government support for the sector. Previous congresses have also focused on public and community safety within the framework of sustainable tourism and sustainable destinations management.
In his budget presentation, meanwhile, Jordan disclosed that government will undertake a stock-taking exercise of potential sources of tourism products with the country’s ten administrative regions next year, designed “to identify elements of nature, culture, heritage, community and other assets that could serve as the basis for the development of tourism in the regions.”
Responding specifically to the announcements in the 2017 budget relating to the tourism industry former President of the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) Gerry Gouveia told Stabroek Business that investors in the sector must once again wait to see whether pronouncements are matched by “what is actually accomplished.” Gouveia said it remained his view that the overall marketing of Guyana as a tourism destination was “essentially a tourism responsibility” and that once that is done “it becomes the job of the investors in the sector to shape and provide the product.” He said there was “a whole range of other issues” including airlift, a trained hospitality work force, the creation of a convivial environment and the development of the country’s interior locations that needed addressing.
With regard to Guyana’s hosting of the Inter American Congress next year, the Roraima Airways boss said, “What we must hope is that the responsibilities of hosting such a prestigious forum do cause us to change our disposition to the [tourism] sector.”
In his presentation Jordan also made reference to the country’s “other expositions” including GuyExpo, Building Expo and Wedding Expo, though none of these have made a meaningful contribution to the country’s rating as a tourism destination.
