ANYONE who follows international news online will note that news websites, in particular the most reputable ones, will often feature advertisements from various luxury companies. This, one can imagine, is largely due to the hefty price tags such billing must surely attract, reaching audiences the world over as they do.

This background explains what was so surprising about the numerous recent advertisements on CNN’s website for the Parintins Folklore Festival, billed as the second largest festival in Brazil, only surpassed of course by the infamous Rio de Janeiro Carnival.
That the Brazilian authorities were both willing and able to afford this sort of widespread coverage speaks volumes about that country’s commitment to tourism.

Even further, it also yields insights Guyana can learn from regarding marketing local cultural events internationally. The Guyana Carnival, the newest addition to local festivities, certainly performed reasonably well but it was clearly aiming at Guyanese locally and abroad, if the attendees of events are any indication.

That Brazil’s advertisements were promoted on such a broad platform as the CNN website, however, is strongly indicative of a more general and larger scale approach to tourism. This echoes Guyana’s own challenges at attracting unique visitors to the country, rather than just locals who currently reside abroad. While there are certainly sizeable numbers to draw from in the United States, Canada and Britain, this is nonetheless a finite pool, whose interactions locally are likely to be limited and specific to a certain type of experience.

Getting the tourists who are truly adventurous to travel here is much the same, as the challenge the Brazilians face in getting tourists to travel all the way to the relatively remote Amazon town hosting the Parintins Folklore Festival.

And so, the question we must now ask, and really have always needed to ask, is how to market Guyana effectively outside of our core tourist group. Is focused online advertising like Brazil’s the best approach for us?

Even further, observers of international tourism news will note the Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s efforts to promote that country by donating to the English Premier League club Arsenal. While certainly attracting much attention to tourism to Rwanda, and perhaps therefore satisfying its objective, the donation has stirred a great deal of controversy given the Rwandan regime benefits from aid from the United Kingdom, and that this money could arguably be put toward the African country’s more pressing needs. Merely attracting attention, therefore, is far from a full solution.

Perhaps a better way to think about tourism is neither through large specific donations nor, expensive broad spectrum advertisements. Wealthy United States cities, as an example, where Guyanese reside can provide a concrete population to target with more specific advertisements. These should be supported by a drive to have our own Guyanese abroad advocate for domestic tourism, generating and reinforcing marketing between word of mouth and advertising within the cities. Further, this approach’s success is quite measurable, as a record of the home address of visitors is available through multiple avenues.

Learning from our Brazilian neighbours should certainly help move local tourism in the right direction, even though directly copying other nations might not be the best fit, as Rwanda seems to demonstrate. Nonetheless, a strategy that targets a specific population, and is measurable and accountable, must surely be worth an attempt. And, as with any new attempt, if it is successful it can be expanded and mirrored, and if not, easily and painlessly reversed.