THE 24th Inter-American Congress of Ministers and High-level Authorities of Tourism came to a close on Thursday with the adoption of the Declaration of Georgetown, paving the way for tourism advancements in the Americas.

During the two-day conference held at the Marriott Hotel, Organisation of American States (OAS) tourism representatives met to discuss matters under the theme “Connecting the Americas through Sustainable Tourism”.
The Declaration of Georgetown seeks to connect the Americas through sustainable tourism development in the region.

Speaking at the close, Director General of Tourism and National Coordinator of the Congress, Donald Sinclair, thanked the delegates for the passion they poured into the declaration.

“It is the first time that Georgetown has been associated with such an important tourism document so we are going to disseminate the Declaration of Georgetown to ensure that the stakeholders understand the content so that we can begin to execute the aspects of it,” he said.

He said too that the Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Business feels a great sense of accomplishment that the conference was devoid of major glitches.
“When we heard that we were hosting it, it sounded like an enormous challenge, In fact, it has been an enormous challenge but we put together an excellent team … there are a lot of unseen persons who did a lot of work to make this happen (and) we’re grateful to all of them,” Sinclair said.

Minister of Business with responsibility for Tourism, Dominic Gaskin, thanked the delegations for their support to Guyana.
“Guyana has taken a lot away from this particular congress. We are a very young tourism destination and we have a young tourism industry and a lot of what you said in the presentations has been extremely useful for us.
“The experiences of other countries you may take for granted because you’ve done this before. You’ve heard it before but for us to listen to the experience of more mature destinations is extremely important and very inspiring,” he said.
During the afternoon session of the conference, the plenary elected Mexico as the new chair of the 25th Inter-American Committee on Tourism (CITUR) while Jamaica and Panama were elected as vice-chairs.

The Mexican delegation reaffirmed their country’s commitment to working towards the development of tourism in the region while both Jamaica and Panama expressed similar sentiments.

Paraguay was elected to host the 25th Inter-American Congress of Ministers and High-level Authorities of Tourism in 2021.
The Paraguayan delegation said although Guyana has raised the bar very high, their country will seek to exceed expectations on the advancement of tourism.
Paraguay’s decision to host the conference was met with resounding support from counties such as Colombia, Ecuador, Dominica Republic and Nicaragua.
OAS Executive Secretary Kim Osborne expressed gratitude to the President and Government of Guyana for successfully hosting the conference.
Osborne also presented Minister Gaskin with an ornamental representation of the flags of the various OAS member states and called for a renewed demonstration of shared responsibility to improve tourism in the hemisphere.