Regions mulling flagship tourism projects
can be sorted out,” Phillips added.
Three lakes
The need for better infrastructure was also highlighted by Da Silva who said work needs to be carried out to rehabilitate the access road which leads to two of the three lakes in the region, which is the focal point of their project; Bradford also contended that there needs to be some amount of re-sanding of the beaches in Bartica, a task which he said would cost “untold millions.”
Expanding more on the issue of the high cost associated with domestic transportation, Phillips said, “We can put together all these lovely ideas, but the lovely cost is not going to make people come if the cost is too high for them to come…we need to promote domestic tourism a great deal, we need to reach out more but for that to succeed the price has to come down. A lot of Guyanese do not have the disposable income; as much as we may want to go see Kaieteur and everywhere else, it’s just not possible right now because of the cost.”
This, the woman said, has since prompted talks at the regional level to consider the establishment of a regional carrier as an alternative service for the regional tourism sector.
“One of the things that did come out at our regional level is the establishment of a regional carrier that might cut down on some of these cross country transportation costs, so it’s an alternative service especially with the road conditions as they are right now, this can actually work in our favour, but it is something we have to explore a bit more. We already have the reputation of being the most expensive destination because of transportation cost to get in the Rupununi and move around the Rupununi… it’s really that transportation cost that spikes everything up,” Phillips said.
Commenting on the need for there to be more training opportunities Phillips noted that while the Rupununi, unlike the others, has been able to benefit from training in tourism and hospitality related services, she believes the standard of training must be enhanced.
“Training is something that is continuously needed, but for us the next emphasis would be on how we can raise the bar on the level of training that currently exists? We would like to reach more markets and for us that means we have to look at how we have been doing things and how we can improve it…,” she said.
Meanwhile, President of the Guyana Tourism Authority, Brian Mullis, who also spoke at the session, explained that the GTA, which has the responsibility of building capacity in the industry, has been doing so through a revised licensing and regulatory process, which they are in the process of “reimagining,” with the hope of finalizing it by the end of September.
Additionally, they are actively supporting strategy and policy development and are in the process of laying the ground work for what they are characterizing as a living destination development action plan.
“First, we started mapping existing tourism sites and we have started to complete the mapping of tourism facilities, a lot of which will be going on our new website… we are also mapping visitor ready products in Indigenous Communities and we are learning about new products that are attracting visitors already on week in, week out basis,” Mullis added.
Further, he said, they have already started laying the groundwork for a project as early as November which is centred on demand based mapping of visitor flows.
Gaskin in brief remarks said, “When we have a discussion about tourism we need to be speaking with persons, representatives whether it be from the regional authorities or the private sector of our regions… it is important to note the government cannot sit in Georgetown and believe that we know everything and can run things centrally, especially not in the area of tourism and that is why we decided that two years ago that we would try to get the regions involved as much as possible in the development of tourism around Guyana.”
“When we decide on our flagship tourism project where we put investors in touch with the region and we as the government invest in product development and marketing the product, that needs to transcend politics,” Gaskin added.