Cost of domestic tourism beyond the reach of ordinary Guyanese
Tourism Authority Head wants more low cost packages
Stabroek News
December 8, 2006
Every year more than 2000 people travel to the interior both by air and overland to experience the majestic beauty of Guyana's world-renowned Kaieteur Falls. The vast majority are visitors to Guyana, drawn to this wonder of nature by stories that have been told far and wide about its awesome beauty. It is the same with our tourist resorts and interior savannahs. The richness of our nature-based tourism product is enjoyed to a far greater extent by visitors to Guyana than by the local population.
Indira Anandjit, Executive Director of the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) believes that the underdevelopment of domestic tourism has implications for the country's tourism product as a whole. "I believe that if more Guyanese were to experience the beauty of this country they can serve as a valuable marketing mechanism for the tourism product. They can sell Guyana to their relatives and friends overseas and considerably increase the number of visitors to these shores."
Anandjit, however, is under no illusions about the reasons behind the traditional sluggishness of domestic tourism. The high cost of domestic tourism has kept it beyond the reach of wage-earning Guyanese, a circumstance that has inevitably led to product promotion that targets visitors almost exclusively." We simply must find ways of making our resorts and other tourist destinations more accessible to ordinary Guyanese by making the cost of the experience more affordable."
From her own vantage point as head of the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) Ms. Anandjit's pronouncement is little more than wishful thinking. The GTA, the state agency responsible for promoting Guyana's tourism product is, even by regional standards, a minuscule outfit. Its G$85m 2006 budget is "small change" even by the standards of the tiniest Caribbean tourist destinations and certainly not nearly enough to sustain its occasional initiatives to provide low cost tour packages.
So far this year the Authority has spent $G40m on marketing, mostly through attendance at trade fairs. As external marketing goes that amount is a proverbial drop in the ocean. "Our entire marketing budget amounts to a tiny fraction of what other countries spend on a single promotion exercise."
Bargain prices: Visitors to Guyana enjoy low-priced interior tours that are beyond the reach of ordinary Guyanese.
How to divide its meagre resources between promoting Guyana's tourism product overseas and pushing domestic tourism is the very essence of the challenge facing the GTA's Executive Director. She believes that unless opportunities can be created for Guyanese residing at home to appreciate the beauty of their own country and embrace the tourism product the tourism industry as a whole will suffer. "Those countries that have reaped success as tourist destinations have been able to successfully promote domestic tourism with a high degree of success. You only have to look at Europe, North America, Barbados, Jamaica and other countries, Guyanese who live at home tend to pay very little attention to domestic tourism. They prefer to take their holidays abroad."
If the reasons why domestic tourism have failed to catch on go beyond money Anandjit believes that if we can somehow bring costs within the reach of ordinary Guyanese more people will seize the opportunity to see Guyana. She points out that since the industry is wholly run by the private sector it is up to the tour operators to make domestic tourism cheaper. She says that while special packages already exist for the domestic market the tour operators can do more. "It is true that the tour operators have special packages for locals. The fact is, however, that even these are out of the reach of many Guyanese and I think that they can do more to bring their prices down." Persuading local tour operators to offer "rock bottom" prices will probably not be easy. Tax-free concessions for tourism-related imports are offset by high fuel costs and major investments in resort development in an industry that favours the smaller number of visitors associated with niche tourism - bird-watching, nature treks etc - rather than the larger numbers associated with the conventional destinations of the region. "We cannot and we do not want mass tourism in Guyana because we do not have the infrastructure to cater for those numbers. We cannot have thousands of people thronging through the fragile eco system. We need to limit the numbers in order to keep it as pristine as possible."
Anandjit says, however, that while the local tourism industry is a high cost enterprise cheaper packages for locals is an investment that can pay off. "What we are advocating is not a situation that leaves the tour operators to run their businesses at a loss but built-in low-priced packages which do not have to run all year round and which target low-waged Guyanese and provide them with an experience that they cannot otherwise have."
The high cost of the Guyana tourism product is, in large measure, a function of the infancy of the industry. Travel to tourist destinations, much of which must be done either by air, sea or long, sometimes arduous overland treks means substantial investment in aircraft, pilots, aviation fuel, gasoline, speedboats and buses. The journeys are often relatively short but the logistics of "moving from point A to point B" involve heavy investment. "People can travel overland to Kaieteur but how many people have four days to spare to have that experience," Anandjit says.
Still, she says, the notion that it costs less to travel to Trinidad and Tobago than to an interior resort is a myth. It is, she believes, a contrived argument used to justify the local preference for overseas travel. "If you travel to Trinidad you have to pay your taxi fare to the airport, your travel tax and the cost of your flight. When you arrive in Trinidad you have to pay for local transportation, accommodation and meals. Those costs can never be lower than an all expenses trip to Baganara."
Anandjit believes that the preference among Guyanese living at home for holidays abroad is a function of conditioning. "We have never really been taught to experience and enjoy the beauty of our country. The preference for holidays overseas has a lot to do with the notion of being travelled. That notion will remain valid as long as we do not know what we are missing by travelling in Guyana." The GTA's Execu-tive Director anticipates that next year the Authority's budget will increase significantly. Still, she says, it will be nowhere near enough to meet the requirements of a sector that must raise its marketing game if it is to compete effectively for the tourist dollar. The Authority, she says, will pay more attention to domestic tourism next year and will be seeking to work more closely with the tour operators through the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG). Anandjit knows, however, that Guyana is still some distance away from a thriving domestic tourism sector. The cost of discovering Guyana still remains far too high.