Oxen-drawn punts, Rolls Royce among att
Oxen-drawn punts, a Rolls Royce, and pest-fighting insects were among the highlights of a tour of the Albion Estate, which the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) has been promoting as part of its cultural heritage tourism product.
On Saturday, GuySuCo hosted a familiarisation tour of the Albion Estate to showcase the attractions there. GuySuCo’s Commercial Manager Rama Persaud explained that the tour is part of the company’s new tourism initiative. “It’s a new line of business that we are developing, a new sector. Not that we are moving away from our core business but we are developing this as an additional stream in our transition. We believe that we have a product in terms of our history and we want to expose it and we think we can benefit from it,” he said.
Stabroek News had previously reported that with the aim of generating additional revenue for the downsized sugar industry, GuySuCo has moved to turn some of its estates into a “cultural heritage tourism product” where persons would gain a firsthand experience of estate operations. Locations identified for the programme are the Albion, Uitvlugt and Blairmont estates and GuySuCo’s La Bonne Intention Office compound.
Persaud said on Saturday that even as they are working to perfect the package, “we are ready even as it is.”
Present on the Albion Head Estate tour were major tour operators from Georgetown, representa-tives from the Guyana Tourism Authority, members of the media and GuySuCo and estate officials.
The tour began with breakfast at 9:30 am at the Albion Estate’s senior staff club following which everyone was treated to a mini-tour to the estate’s insectary – where insects are kept for the estate’s bio control mechanism, as well as the nursery to view the different varieties of sugarcane. Participants then joined an estate lorry which drove through Rose Hall