THE Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) has clarified that there has been a 7% increase in tourist arrivals during the period January to April 2015.

GTA Director Indranauth Haralsingh during a press conference yesterday at GTA’s boardroom highlighted that the Authority has noted in the past few weeks that there have been many comments that visitor arrival figures were false or misleading.
Haralsingh underscored the fact that for the year 2015, arrivals up to March had increased by 13.9%. However, the country saw a drop in April by some 6.4%. He could not say what the reason was for the decline, but noted that the arrivals to date are still somewhat high.

“For January to April, 2015,the GTA recorded 66,495 visitors compared to 62,131 in 2014 for the same period, that’s a 7% increase in arrivals and we are still ahead of the average world arrival which is 4.5%,” he stated.
“We would like to inform the general public and our stakeholders that the figures are accurate and clarify how information is captured and analysed.” The director went to define “what is a tourist,” noting that a tourist is a person who is “travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes.”
Data is collected from the embarkation/disembarkation (E/D) cards provided by the immigration department and is entered into an analytical programme called Management Information System for Tourism (MIST). This system, he stated, was designed for data entry and analysis by the Caribbean Tourism Organistaion (CTO) for its members, using United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) definitions.
Media operatives were also afforded a first-hand opportunity as the data was being entered into the MIST system for verification purposes.
“Some of the data captured in the E/D card include nationality, country of birth, country of residence, intended length of stay, intended place of stay whether it is a private residence or hotel, purpose of visit, age and gender,” he related.
While MIST is designed to capture all incoming passengers, The GTA publishes only the visitor arrival figures, the other data on passengers are used internally to monitor airline performance and passenger market share. He noted that other data can be used strategically in the country’s marketing plan.
According to Haralsingh, the data presented for the period January to April of this year was tabulated from Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Ogle International Airport, Moleson Creek and Lethem. “Prior to 2013, figures presented did not include Ogle International Airport, Moleson Creek and Lethem.”
The United States remains the largest source market with a market share of 39.3%, followed by the Caribbean, the second largest source market with a 24.4% market share.