PULL QUOTE: “Our tourism destinations and our hotels need to be ready to provide the excellence of service that every tourist expects.” –Christopher ‘Kit’ Nascimento

THE Tourism & Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG), in collaboration with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), hosted a five-day training workshop at Cara Lodge in Quamina Street, Georgetown catering for 25 hotel and resort owners in an initiative aimed at “dealing with the challenges of competing with bigger establishments that are also competing with other territories, other countries, other islands that tend to have more visitors to the country or to the island.”

It was held under the theme “Marketing Techniques for Small Hotels Training Workshop” and concluded yesterday with a presentation ceremony. Sixteen hotel and resort owners and managers participated.

The training was voluntarily facilitated and conducted by Mrs. Catherine Hughes, and the hotels that participated were: Grand Coastal, Sloth Island, Aracari Resort, Splashmins Resort, Rupununi Eco Hotel & Resort, Herdmanston Lodge, Roraima Residence Inn, Roraima Duke Lodge, Kanuku Suites, Palace de Leon Hotels, Hotel Ariantze, Cara Lodge Hotel and Pressville Hotel and Banquet Hall.

Mrs Hughes noted that the focus was on how the owners define their products, how they establish it, what the market wants, and how they should establish a niche market.

Last year, THAG members Ms Shamaine Davis of the Roraima Group of Companies and Mrs. Catherine Hughes of Ariantze Hotel participated in the Training of Trainers Workshop held in the region. A manual was prepared from that experience, and has since been utilized to train other resort and hotel proprietors and operators.

THAG President Christopher ‘Kit’ Nascimento voiced disappointment that only 16 entities had applied to attend the workshop although 25 had been catered for. He also said: “We should have had 30 or 40 people applying to come on this course. It tells me that some of our hospitality institutions do not understand the level of excellence that they have to bring themselves up to if we are going to be a successful tourism destination.”

Nevertheless, he commended the participants who embraced the opportunity to be trained, stating that opportunities like this one, which has a minimum cost for the training, do not come very often.

The Splashmins Resort representative, speaking on behalf of the all the workshop attendees, disclosed that they had all been unaware of how effective social media was in marketing their businesses, although they use it on a daily basis. She said: “I learnt of the different markets that we have to promote our businesses, and how it can be segmented, and the amount of things we have in Splashmins that we could be selling…. Though it was selling, I never looked at it in the form it was handed down to us by Cathy.”

Participants of this workshop now have a certificate in marketing techniques, and can now provide great service to tourists.
Written By Shivanie Sugrim