Visitors at record level
-tourism director
Stabroek News
June 18, 2004
Guyana has had record numbers of visitors for the past nine months with the arrivals for the first five months of this year exceeding the figure for any previous year on record.
This is according to a press release yesterday from the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) but no figures were provided to back up the statements made.
The arrivals recorded are due to intensified promotion of Guyana overseas; increas-ed marketing and promotional activities; more international events in Guyana; and a marked increase in interest in Guyana as a tourism destination, a release from the Executive Director of the GTA, Donald Sinclair said.
The release said that for five of the nine months - October and November 2003 and February, April and May, 2004 - the arrival figures were the highest ever for any similar preceding period.
Arrivals for March 2004 were exceeded only by March 1994 and March 2002, but surpassed March 2003 by 21.4%. September 2003 recorded the highest arrivals for any September since 1993. Only the percentage was released but not the actual number of visitors for the corresponding periods.
Only visiting non-residents are being counted, the release assured. Guyanese residents returning to Guyana from trips overseas are not counted as visitors, Sinclair said, adding that the arrival figures do not include, as yet, persons arriving through Moleson Creek from Suriname and through Lethem from Brazil. Soon such data will be included in the general computation to give a truer picture of arrivals into Guyana.
Sinclair noted that in spite of the figures the Embarka-tion/Disembarkation (E/D) forms in current use cannot yield conclusive answers as to what portion of those visitors are `genuine tourists' and how much is the per capita spending from those visitors. The forms separate `purpose of travel' into the general categories of business, holiday or other.
He noted, too, that information provided on the form regarding intended place of stay was usually imprecise or inaccurate and can only be verified by reports from hotels or guest houses. And securing corroborative data from accommodation establishments was not always a straightforward undertaking.
For better information gathering, he suggested that a comprehensive Exit Survey would be a much more reliable tool for providing information relating to the `genuine tourists' and how much money they would have spent, while accurate reporting from hotels, guest houses and resorts would be able to give matching data about occupancies and resort stays.
The GTA, he said, believes that the increase in arrivals is due to a strong correlation between intensified marketing and promotional activities over the past two years which have assumed a variety of forms, such as travel-trade shows; international tourism and tourism-related conferences, `Guyana on Show' events in selected countries; advertisements in local and international publications; sponsorship of events held locally and contributions to overseas participation by high-profile locals; and sponsorship of `Fam' trips by overseas media personnel and tour operators.
Sinclair noted, too, that for the remainder of this year, there are a number of major visitor events on the calendar. They include the Miss Caricom Pageant scheduled for July 10; GUYEXPO 2004, September 23-27; and the Central American and Caribbean Body Building and Fitness Expo from October 1-3.
GUYEXPO and the Fitness Expo, in particular, are expected to generate substantial visitor traffic to Guyana.
For the tourism sector, he said, the increase in the number of visitors is very encouraging since it indicates a complete recovery from "the trough" of 2002 and 2003 when a number of visitors cancelled their trips to Guyana. It should be noted that during that period there was a significant increase in criminal activities in certain parts of the country.
Barring any dramatic reversals and with the current trend in arrivals, 2004 is shaping up to be Guyana's most successful tourism year, Sinclair said.