With Essequibo positioning itself to become the country’s standout place amongst the various destinations and varied across Guyana, there is, already, no shortage of emerging Tour Operators in the region who are vigorously blowing their trumpets over what they have to offer. When the Stabroek Business visited the Essequibo Coast recently we found Hilon James, a resident of Golden Fleece, and the proprietor of Eco Destination and Tours Guyana in a condition of animated anticipation.
Launched in March this year, Eco Tours, believed to be the first licensed tour operator on the Essequibo Coast, is wasting no time in offering what the Proprietor describes as “an authentic Essequibo experience” in what has long been touted as one of Guyana’s culturally richest regions. James may well be considered to be an unlikely ‘front runner’ in pursuit of the shaping of an authentic Essequibo tourism product, coming as she does from a profession that is decidedly distant from the pursuit of entrepreneurship. Her roots are teaching, serving as a Trained Teacher, though her current position as the Treasurer of the Essequibo Chamber of Commerce as well as her membership of the Essequibo Tourist Association qualifies her to throw herself more vigorously into entrepreneurship given the opportunities that are beginning to ‘open up’ in what is now an oil-driven economy.
Once we got James talking, we discovered that what is now the firm footing that she appears to have established in the tourism industry had been preceded by lesser entrepreneurial ventures including one-time ownership of an Internet Café, and ‘episodes’ as both a Caterer and a Cake Decorator. Going forward, however, James now appears to have her heart set on providing visitors to Guyana, and specifically to Essequibo, with a taste of a tourism product that parades, among other things, the beauty of what is widely considered to be some of the most visually pleasing pieces of ‘real estate’ across the whole of Guyana. James’ own business model envisages the offering of a product that provides visitors with nature-based ‘outings’ that can last for a day, overnight and can extend further, depending on the appetite of her clients for the rugged outdoors.
But there is a deeper significance to James’ envisaged business model. She pictures a tourist ‘offering’ that allows for the fashioning of a business model that benefits a wider range of service providers in her own community. There is, she says, an ongoing exercise that seeks to determine the extent to which other individuals and groups in the community can ‘pitch in,’ providing other services including packaged meals and transportation for the visitors, opportunities that provide investment openings for other entrepreneurially-inclined persons. James and her Marketing Manager, Romain Persaud, will serve as Tour Guides for the company’s interior ‘excursions.’ Persaud told Stabroek Business that Eco Destination & Tours, Guyana, will be seeking, through the experience on offer, to tell the story of Essequibo through its “visible history,” its monuments and historic sites, names and places that might have, hitherto, only been read about; flora and fauna that are to be found along the banks of the Pomeroon River and its lakes.
These ‘experiences,’ he adds, will be packaged into “excursions and tours for individuals and groups” who will come away having experienced both the thrill and excitement as well as the peace and tranquility that comprise Essequibo’s tourism offering. A pharmacist by profession, Persaud has plans to ‘graft’ unto the experience ‘talks’ about what the outdoors have to offer to the pursuit of healthy living. Essequibo’s tourist offerings also embraces what is known as the Tri-Lake experience, that allows visitors to experience three of the region’s best-known lakes, Lake Capoey, Lake Tapacuma and Lake Mainstay, each of them providing their own unique experiences that bring different dimensions to the total experience. Persaud says that this is part of the overall Essequibo experience to which Eco Destination & Tours will be paying particular attention.
As Guyana’s growth as a destination for visitors and a place with which to do business grows in the wake of what the country has to offer in the light of its oil-driven development, Essequibo continues to make a compelling case both as an investment haven and a place to see for both Guyanese keen to know more about the country and for investors and intrepid travelers seeking new opportunities and experiences. Both James and Persaud told the Stabroek Business that while there are ‘good vibes’ to be derived from their probe of Essequibo’s potential as a tourism haven, the realization of that ambition can only derive from the country’s preparedness to throw itself into both aggressively and strategically marketing the ‘destination’ widely, within and without Guyana and investing in the infrastructure that will add value to what are already the nature-bestowed gifts facilities that make for a tourist haven.
For James, her pursuit of a modest idea that has grown into something “much bigger,” has been more than worthwhile now that the larger picture has emerged. She recalls the tactical misstep of initially contemplating the creation of a tourism market which, for the most part, targeted only Essequibians. That idea was set aside in the face of what had been, for the most part, a we-have-seen-it-all before response from her initially targeted audience. The idea, however, she says, has taken root with the broader market of coastal Guyanese seeking travel and adventure opportunities at home as well as with visitors to Guyana, whether for business or pleasure, attracted to what the country has to offer through marketing tools that now carry messages to all corners of the globe. What an enhanced understanding of the ‘tourism market’ has also done for businesses like Eco-Destination Tours, Guyana, according to James, is to infuse a more generous measure of strategic planning into the pursuits associated with investments in the tourism sector. This, she says, requires the continual strengthening of links with the existing national structures associated with the development of the sector.
ECO-Destination Tours, Guyana may be a mere eight months old but Hilon says that she is hugely encouraged by the responses that have been forthcoming from the company’s potential local and overseas markets, not least from overseas-based Guyanese whom she says now appear to be seized with a sense of excitement over what they have ‘missed out on’ over the years. As external interest in the company’s tourism product grows, James says that she is also more than pleased with the role it plays in facilitating Retreats and Business Conferences for city-based business houses. The company has also grown sufficiently to have become aware of the importance of the application of Information Technology to its marketing pursuits. Its enhanced access to an efficient communication infrastructure has enabled more efficient links with an expanding market. More reliable movement of people between Georgetown and the Essequibo will, Hilon says, contribute significantly to the growth of what had once, many moons ago, been the Cinderella County.
The rehabilitation of an existing airstrip at Anna Regina could, Hilon told the Stabroek Business, ‘work wonders’ for the growth of the tourist potential which Essequibo offers. The completion of this project, including the significant upgrading of its existing infrastructure is, she says, high on the lobby list of the Essequibo Chamber.
