What is planned for Christmas?
PEEPING TOM
Kaieteur News
July 20, 2004
The Christmas season is far away from us but should not be far away from our thoughts.
Christmas usually brings a bonanza in sales for the business community, back pay for public servants, a great deal of fun for the children and a flood of tourists to Guyana.
If the tidal wave of visitors that we had last year is to repeat itself this year, Guyana’s vibrant Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Industry must begin to set plans in train to encourage Guyanese in America, Canada, England, Suriname, Venezuela, Brazil, Antigua, Barbados, Trinidad and the innumerable places where locals are to found, to come back home for the holidays.
COME BACK HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS! This would seem to be an appropriate theme for a worldwide pitch by the local tourism ministry. Most Guyanese living outside of their homeland have a nostalgic longing to come back home, especially for Christmas, which is so uniquely celebrated in Guyana.
This year we should try to pay special attention to thousands of Guyanese living across the borders in Suriname, Venezuela and Brazil. Let us face facts. If we want numbers coming back home, the metropolis cannot be the sole area of concentration. While the rainy season in the Rupununi may inhibit movement between the coast and that area, it should not deter us from encouraging Guyanese resident in border towns to come home for the holidays.
A main but not exclusive focus will however have to remain on Guyanese and visitors from North America and Europe. We need large numbers from all destinations to help boost our tourism package.
There are of course concerns about the crime situation, about the mosquito menace, and about the limited family entertainment activities. The latter needs to be addressed because when visitors come these days, it is no longer like in the past, when they were comfortable to stay bedded at home with their relatives. They want to go sightseeing, recall the places that they used to visit before they left these shores and they also want to go and participate in other activities.
So what will we have this year to attract the visitors? What shows will be planned? What major international artiste will be coming to help us celebrate this truly unique Christmas? What major sporting events will be hosted to set our hearts stopping? I notice that the West Indies Cricket Board of Control will be running off the regional tournaments beginning as early as November, one month before the rainy season in Guyana. What special activities will we be having so that we can encourage not just individuals to come home for the holidays but entire families? And what traditional activities can we look forward to?
I would like to urge the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce to look at the period November to February as a special period for tourism in Guyana. For one, this coincides with the cold winter months when Guyanese and others may be inclined to escape to the tropics. For another, this period also contains the two major festivals that attract visitors to Guyana: Christmas and Mashramani. The tourist season should therefore be one continuous period, spanning November to March. Plans should already be advanced to plan activities for this year’s season.
While some overseas-based Guyanese may have already decided that they are coming home for the holidays, there is no substitute for special promotions to encourage others to visit Guyana. If five thousand Guyanese come home and each spends one thousand United States dollars, then that amounts to one billion dollars in local currency circulating in the internal economy.
This is another reason why we just cannot settle for the few thousand of tourists that some home each year. We need to multiply that ten times over, if the economy is to be boosted by tourism. The tourism ministry should have a target for each year and should ensure that the target is reached.
But to attract people to our country we need activities. The world is becoming so integrated that no longer are Guyanese coming back home willing to sit all day and chat about how things are shaping in the country. He or she in the past may spend an entire vacation following up on the success and failures of relatives and friends, about local politics etc. Today, of course, Guyanese living outside of our borders are very familiar with what is going on in the country and are able almost on a daily basis, through emails and telephones, to appreciate developments back home. This is why we must have activities for tourists when they come here, because it represents an investment in the future of tourism. And Guyana needs tourism.
So, what can the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Industry tell us about their plans for the peak tourist season? What is the theme for this year‘s promotion? Feel free to use the one that I suggested: Come Home for the Holidays.
Let us take the visitors, the vast majority of whom will be returning Guyanese, down memory lane to their childhood days. Help them to relive the things of the their past and also help those of us who are here to reminisce on the old days. Then there is cultural and sports tourism, which we need. The cricket stadium is still years ahead. So in the meantime let is utilize Bourda to have a major cricket tournament with the old stars for Mashramani. Sports tourism is a big thing these days in most cities. What about boxing over the Christmas holidays?
This means that the planning must begin now. Given the rainy season in December-January, there should be a shift to some indoor activities that would entertain all Guyanese and other guests. Then we should move seamlessly into the Mashramani season and use the opportunity to widen the activities planned to reflect the cultural diversity of Guyana.
Early planning is important. People do not just pack up and come home for the holidays.
They plan this well in advance and if the local tourism ministry wishes to have an avalanche of visitors for the peak season, their promotions will have to begin now and this would mean that a calendar of events will have to be planned to help attract visitors.