Tourism needs clean city,adequate marketing
-Sinclair
Stabroek News
July 14, 2004
Sanitising Georgetown, marketing the country's tourism products and upgrading accommodation standards are three of the major challenges currently facing the local tourism industry, Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) Executive Director Donald Sinclair has said.
In an interview, Sinclair told the Stabroek News "something has to be done about Georgetown. Georgetown has to be cleaned. It has to be sanitised. We know the challenges that the City Council has. But the constant reminder and feedback (from visitors and citizens) is that Georgetown needs attention."
There are beautiful wooden buildings with beautiful architecture, he said, referring to the dumping of garbage at the side of city streets, vagrants, the homeless, including street children, congestion at bus and taxi parks and other irritants. He said that if the negative features in Georgetown could be minimised and the positive features enhanced Georgetown would be better placed as a tourist destination.
Georgetown is at present the main port of entry for local tourist destinations but garbage heaps and clogged drains are eyesores to visitors and citizens alike.
Most of the challenges, such as security, beautification, and solid waste management, which Georgetown faces, he said, are similar to other cities. Georgetown is not alone in this regard, but the irritants he said need to be addressed as a matter of urgency not only for tourism but also in view of the upcoming Cricket World Cup 2007.
Speaking about challenges and successes the GTA has experienced since it was established over a year ago, Sinclair said that in terms of marketing, the GTA and the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) would have to look at overseas representation. He said it does not necessarily mean opening an office in New York or Miami or London but it means having some entity there to run the marketing business.
But he noted that marketing representation was not cheap. He said the most recent proposal the GTA got for marketing in the United Kingdom was close to $1 million per month. "If we have to do that kind of marketing and we are to be in the business it is something we have to move towards," he said, adding that "Barbados, does it; Jamaica does it; and the other Caribbean islands have their marketing representatives in the key market areas."
"We want a larger budget. We want to be able to reach our niche markets more. We want to reach out to our birdwatchers. Reach out to the sailing groups, to those interested in adventure... but this requires money to advertise and promote in those (publications) and to attend those sales events, where those people are. Yes we go to three or four sales events for the year, we go to Germany, to ITB, the World Travel Market in London and we go to Rediscover the Caribbean in Barbados but our competitors, because they have more resources than we do, make more appearances at sales events, advertise their products consistently and attract the clientele."
He said that the Go-Invest initiative of taking the country to the market was a fantastic idea and one that the GTA hopes to copy in a tourism road show later in the year.
For the road show he said that all the "shakers and movers, the operators, those who sell travel, the airline and the media" would be invited to take part. Unlike the Go-Invest trade promotion show where the tourism sector was competing for space, he said the focus would be on tourism.
Speaking about the authority, he said that it was up and running. "It has a budget to work with. Not as large as anybody would wish but it was already beginning to see some successes."
At this time, he said, the story about Guyana is in a lot more places today than it was last year. Almost on a weekly basis there are stories about Guyana in a journal, a publication, an art gallery, a new place. These things are happening incrementally and are adding up to an increase in visitor arrivals here.
Based on the number of arrivals to the country for the first five months he said that so far, this year is shaping up to be the blockbuster year for arrivals in the country.
Although the arrivals may be good for the country, he said the industry has fierce challenges, particularly in the improvement of standards at hotels, resorts, tour guides and front line staffers. But compared to five years ago, or even last year at this time, he said "strides have been made."
In the sharing of experiences, he noted that Guyana is more active through attendance and participation at the level of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) than in the past. For the first time this year Guyana took part in the CTO Caribbean Tourism Week activities in New York with food display booths. Local tourism officials also had interviews with foreign journalists and travel writers.
Guyana was also represented on the Caribbean Tourism Human Resource Council through the University of Guyana. And the eight projects for that council would be the Caribbean Tourism Learning Systems, which UG would be introducing come 2005, Sinclair added. (Miranda La Rose)