Business Minister Dominic Gaskin yesterday morning visited the MV Serenissima and, according to the Department of Public Information (DPI), he said from all reports the visit of the cruise ship was successful.
The 76 tourists over the three days visited the Kaieteur Falls, the Baganara Resort and went on the Essequibo River tour and a trip around Georgetown, DPI said.
The Business Minister who has responsibility for tourism said that the “cruise ship conducts a number of tours all over the world… they move from the Antarctic to the Indian Ocean to the Amazon and are likely to be back here in another two years.”
According to Gaskin, the Guyana Tourism Authority conducted a consultancy in 2018 to determine what needed to be put in place to attract more cruise ships to visit Guyana. He also noted the current infrastructure capacity at Port Georgetown can accommodate ships similar in size to that of the MV Serenissima and this will allow Guyana to “remain a niche market as opposed to a mass market.”
Responding to the incident with of one of the employees of the ship, the minister said “It was an unfortunate (occurrence) however everything was in place to ensure the safety of passengers but one individual left on his own, quite late in the evening, even though there was an arrangement that would have allowed him to have a tour of the city’s nightlife or to be accompanied but he chose to go alone.”
The DPI report provided no further information on the incident. Yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek reported that the Cruise Director of the ship was attacked and robbed early Saturday morning on Lombard Street, Georgetown, as he was returning to the ship following an outing.
Neil Horrocks was relieved of his iPhone, US$120 and a bank card during the attack, which took place around 1.05 am. Horrocks sustained injuries to his hands and was treated by a doctor on board his vessel, this newspaper was told.
Horrocks, according to police sources, had ventured to a city night spot on Main Street, Georgetown, where he was reportedly drinking. From there he boarded a taxi and disembarked in the vicinity of Mohamed’s Enterprise on Lombard Street, where he was then attacked by two men.
DPI said yesterday that a special task force was established to ensure that the tourists’ visit here was well organized and executed, this task force was made up of officials from several agencies including the GRA, Port Health, Tour Operators, the Police and the CDC.
General Manager of Wilderness Explorers which is responsible for the Destination Management, Andrea de Caires noted that there were no incidents with passengers or with any of the tours apart from that one incident and is grateful to all of the agencies who collaborated to make the visit run as “smooth as silk”.
