Mr. Nadir, addressing a group of trained tour guides during a presentation ceremony on Saturday afternoon at the Roraima Residents Inn, Eping Avenue, Bel Air, Georgetown noted that progress is being made in creating the kind of environment to boost efforts to promote Guyana as a tourism destination.

Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) conducted the tour guide training in conjunction with the Caribbean Regional (HRD) Centre for Economic Competitiveness (CPEC).

One of the things happening to further promote and develop tourism Nadir says is that the Ministry in conjunction with the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) has started a public awareness programme on beautification.

And this programme basically is an anti-liter campaign, which focuses mainly on highlighting how the surroundings look whenever it is clean.

Over the next two months, $500,000 would be spent on television commercials depicting very beautiful scenes around the country, which spreads from Linden to Corentyne and also the Essequibo coast.

Nadir says training personnel raising awareness of people who would have to work in the industry is one of the first tasks stakeholders should take on in building a tourism industry. Tour Guide Training is only one aspect of the entire plans.

This training is not only because THAG has a mandate to deliver fifteen trained tour guides by the end of this year but also the real purpose is to create an opportunity, which would lead to the creation of jobs.

"Jobs will be created as the industry develops and a number of things are happening simultaneously with training to attract investment in tourism and build the industry to guarantee those jobs", he explains.

The ministry would be embarking on marketing of Guyana internationally so that more foreign tourists will visit here.

Efforts will be made to motivate more local people to spend their vocation at many of the exotic destinations here and promote more domestic tourism as well, Nadir says.

This is the only way the jobs for which persons in the industry were trained, would be sustainable, he points out.

Additionally, the minister says there is a very generous package of incentives for people starting their own businesses in the field of tourism, such as hotel and resorts operators. But this is not limited to people starting their own businesses, there are concessions granted to persons who would like to be tour operators as well, he explains.

For those people who would like to venture into such operations in a small way, the government has tabled in the National Assembly the Small Business Development Act, and small businesses in the tourism will certainly benefit from the provisions of that Act.