-as Love and Sunshine destination wedding conference kicks off

STAKEHOLDERS within Guyana’s tourism industry are on the move to make Guyana a “wedding and honeymoon site.”

Under the stewardship of renowned wedding planner and owner of Joy Agness Events, Ms Agness and key players in the tourism industry are working towards making Guyana an ideal destination for weddings and honeymoons.

In order to commence the process, the stakeholders gathered at the Ramada Princess Hotel, Providence, this weekend to deliberate on the way forward for the industry.
The conference called: “Love and Sunshine destination wedding conference,” is intended to be used as a networking tool for local and regional investors.
Speaking to the Guyana Chronicle, Agness said that it was her ambition to push Guyana as a “Destination Wedding Site” because, according to her: “We’ve a lot to offer culturally. We don’t have white sand and blue water, but what we have is eco-tourism which is good and that’s a plus for Guyana, because everybody after a while gets a little tired of doing the same thing over and over.”

The conference will be used by investors to create self-investment, networking opportunities, meet experts and influencers, learn new tips and tactics, create greater focus, become familiar with the industry, specific technology and communication and have a better understanding of effective planning.
Some of the presenters and speakers included Captain Gerry Gouveia, Agness, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the USA for S Travel Concepts Incorporated, Jose Santiago and Founder and Managing-Director of WWW.trinidadweddings.com, Simone San-Ghuran.
As explained by Agness, Guyana as a destination wedding and honeymoon site, is a wonderful opportunity to establish a close working relationship with the leading hotels in Guyana, to plan major national events.

She went on to say, “In this industry, what you’re selling is your ideas and yourself as a representative of your company, and therefore you need to be quite knowledgeable about what you’re doing. So I am here very passionately trying to educate my fellow Guyanese in the Guyana [wedding] industry.”
Guyana’s Government has signalled its intent of getting involved in wedding tourism and stated that it would soon amend the Marriage Act to facilitate speedier weddings in a bid to boost wedding tourism in this country.

President David Granger had said that, “government will amend the Marriage Act to put new procedures in place for non-nationals applying for a Special Marriage Licence.”
And, Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin, had also listed quality and reliability as key elements in service-delivery and said with the expansion of wedding tourism here, those in the industry would focus and deliver accordingly.