– 500,000 international visitors expected in the Amazon paradise in 2025.

By Naomi Marshall

THE Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) is advocating for tourism operators to produce more products, as Guyana’s tourism industry soars in anticipation of 500,000 international visitors coming to the Amazon paradise in the year 2025.

According to the GTA, Guyana has experienced a 9.2 percent increase in international arrivals for the period of January-May, 2019 and as such, the market demand is filling its capacity, resulting in the need for more products.

This was stated by Director of the GTA Brian Mullis at a recently held press conference where he pointed out, “We are now being recognised as a leading global destination with more and more people coming and we have a fortuitous problem and that is for unmet market demand, we need more products.”

He highlighted that there are a number of tax concessions and incentives for travelling tourism in the areas of ground transportation, accommodation, refurbishments, and for tour operators as well.

“However, recognising that tourism is an export sector, we are looking at advocating for that formal recognition of the sector, as an export sector in 2020, so that we can be afforded some of the tax concessions and incentives that other export sectors are,” he noted.

With the recognition, the authority would be able to significantly strengthen the enabling and policy environment to get increases in product development and increased investments, amongst others.

“We basically want it to be possible for the sector to provide vehicles, particularly 4×4 vehicles in the interior, but also larger transit vehicles for larger groups, up to 20 individuals. We want to see incentives for expanding existing lodging, particularly in the interior where the majority of our accommodations in the interior have an average of eight rooms. Refurbishing existing lodging as well, some of our lodging is tired, it’s in need to repair, enhancement, equipment and otherwise,” Mullis explained.

He added, “Unlike our neighbouring destinations in the Caribbean that are known for sun, sand and sea, we are known for nature, adventure and culture and people are looking to buy things such as inflatable kayaks, mountain bikes and any other equipment that people can use to enjoy the plethora of outdoor activities that we have here in the country.”
Based on the GTA’s Strategic Visitors Flow Map, a high percentage of tourists entering Guyana are interested in experiencing tourism activities in and around Georgetown, the lower and upper Essequibo regions, amongst other destinations. Due to this trend, the GTA has prioritised those areas for additional development.

“The increase in Kaieteur National Park is evident year by year: we saw a 10 per cent increase last year in visitation and we are anticipated that it’s going to continue to grow. Then of course, with our premiere circuit in the Rupununi visitation [sic] are growing there to the point where we are hearing from the tourism sector that a lot of lodges have been fully booked out for 2020,” explained Mullis.

Also at the press conference was Minister of Business Haimraj Rajkumar, who stated that the tourism sector will continue to be a high priority for the Government of Guyana, since it understands the value and transformative potential the sector has on the quality of life of Guyanese people.

“The ministry is supporting the development of tourism in our country and we will see how best we can afford our investors and the concessions that they request,” Rajkumar added.
He stated that the citizens of Guyana should all view themselves as ambassadors of the country and should all play a role in the development of Guyana’s tourism sector.
“Regardless of which part the visitors to Guyana go, there are certain things that they would need, and those are accommodations, food and transportation among other services, which we know that we have to provide and in providing these services, we all can participate,” he explained.

In 2018, Guyana welcomed approximately 286,732 international visitors, which showed a 15.9 per cent increase in comparison to the corresponding period for 2017. There was also a 21 per cent increase in travellers coming to Guyana just for leisure purposes, which reflected 183,639 individuals.

In June of this year, Guyana received the Latin American Travel Association’s (LATA’s) “Best in Sustainable Tourism” award. According to the GTA, the country was awarded during LATA’s “Experience Latin America” conference in London, England-Europe’s largest Business to Business (B2B) travel conference.

The LATA Achievement Awards recognises destinations, individuals and/or companies with exemplary case studies of tourism or those that have made an exceptional contribution to the development of sustainable travel to Latin America.

In March of 2019, Guyana was named the number one “Best Ecotourism” destination in the world. The award was presented to Guyana at the ITB global travel trade fair in Berlin, Germany.