Rupununi, Kaieteur Park, old Georgetown targeted for enterprise development
Stabroek News
February 28, 2003
The Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce in collaboration with Conservation International (CI) will design a Nature, Eco-Tourism and Heritage Tourism Development Plan to focus on three main tourism sites - the Rupununi, Kaieteur National Park and historic Georgetown.
This will be done through an initiative, called a `Charette’, Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Manzoor Nadir said at a press conference hosted by both parties in the boardroom of the ministry on Wednesday.
He described the Charette, which will be officially launched at Hotel Tower on March 13, as an intensive workshop organised to solve a specific design or planning problem in a short period of time. He said “it brings together people who are important to a project, to work together and support the results.”
More than 20 international experts from the United States, Canada, Suriname and Ghana in tourism planning and marketing, historic preservation, biodiversity, cultural tourism development, community enterprise development, tourism facilities, and engineering and design would be “leading the process”.
Charettes, deemed to be successful, were also held in Suriname and Ghana.
Their goal would be to conceptualise, describe and document a vision for the three sites in a proposal that would be submitted at the end of the process on March 15.
Charette participants will include local counterparts who will be drawn from the public and private sectors including the Tourism Ministry, the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana, the National Trust, the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs and communities linked to the sites identified.
It is the first time, he said, that such a vigorous and inclusive process is being undertaken in Guyana for the promotion of tourism here.
It is being funded by the United States Agency for International Development, the United Nations Development Programme, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Government of Guyana and CI.
In his remarks, head of CI Guyana, Major-General (rtd) Joe Singh said that the ministry and CI would have the proposals from the Charette which is aimed not only to attract tourists but financing from agencies that see tourism as a means of developing the economy.
CI, he said, was playing a facilitating role as it does not see tourism as a stand-alone activity but as one linked to the process of the protected areas system in Guyana.
He noted that CI is playing a lead role in this regard and is one of the six anchors in the Kanuku and has a collaborative arrangement with those who are developing or are responsible for developing others like Shell Beach and the Kaieteur National Park.
Protected areas by themselves, he said, may conserve biodiversity but they do not bring jobs and generate the kind of opportunities for enterprise development that can improve the way of life for communities in the protected areas.
The outcome of the Charette, he said, should result in not only an increase in tourism opportunity for the traditional tour operators but for community- based tourism as well.
Singh said that many of the villages and outlying communities have their own resources, cultural anthropological and historical sites, and their own way of life.
While the well-known sites would have their own ambience, he said they also provide extensions to community-based tourism. Giving an example, he said, the Kaieteur Falls itself is likely to portray the falls as well as the geology, ethno-botany and the legend of Old Kaie, all as a package.
However, he said instead of the three hours on the ground at Kaieteur, facilities would have to be developed and managed in such a way as to conserve and be economically viable.
He said that the same applies to the Rupununi and historic Georgetown.
