Whenever, over several decades, the idea of Guyana becoming a ‘tourism haven’ has arisen, the idea was frequently doused with cold water, not on account of the country’s lack of credentials to support a tourism sector, but on account of ‘excuses’ that were underpinned by a mix of ideological idiocy and refusal to accept that what we saw as the grandeur that was associated with tourism in other parts of the world could not possibly be replicated here. ‘Ideological’ refusal to visualize hospitality workers serving cocktails to tourists on sandy beaches as a valuable part of the tourist economy was, in some respects, the legacy of an inferiority complex which our colonial past had made difficult for our indigenous leaders to stomach.
Times have changed and these days the country’s tourism ministry is waxing warm about envisaged undertakings that will transform part of the interior into luxury locations that will help banish the banality of urban life from public consciousness. Where an exception will be made, it will be on account of Tourism Minister Oneidge Walrond’s current excitable ‘marketing’ of the various hotels which she appears to feel will, over time, help positively transform the country’s capital. Still, Guyana is well ‘behind time’ with its tourism ‘tra la la.’ Oil has been the ‘party pooper’, the major finds from 2015 onwards and the consequential attention which ‘black gold’ drew to the country brought visitors here from all parts of the world.