-birding, health tourism have great potential – President Ali

WITH its plethora of natural attributes, Guyana must focus on building the necessary infrastructure and a brand which can make it competitive in the tourism market.

This is according to President, Dr Irfaan Ali, who delivered the feature address at the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana’s (THAG) annual President’s Awards Gala and Auction on Saturday night.

He said that Guyana’s tourism product is community-based and targeted, and is therefore very important to the economy.

“Tourism is going to be one of the main components of the structure of our economy now and in the future. We have to now work on building a structure around this model,” President Ali related.

He stated that the model will contain the core attributes of what Guyana is going to sell to the world.

President Ali related that Guyana’s tourism is not urban-based, but urban-influenced and he called for the establishment of a National Birding Club.

“…we have the Botanical Gardens that could be created into one of the world’s most intense urban birding destinations. This is a natural asset in our tourism product so we are right in the hub, but why are we not in the network?” he said.

President Ali explained that the establishment of the club is the first thing needed to get into the birding network.

“We have to set up a national birding group and then the government must support the National Birding Association to be part of the global network through providing and helping with marketing and strategically positioning ourselves,” he said.

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

President Ali, sharing statistics, said that the health and wellness market is a $4.2 trillion market which is projected to grow by 6.9 per cent. He said that the government has been working on different fronts to position themselves in this market.

He noted that tourists who are interested in health and wellness tourism have a preference for it to be nature-based as well as having a close connectivity to a good healthcare system.

“We have all the natural attributes to be competitive in this sector. We don’t have the infrastructure and we have not created a brand. So what is our brand? Our brand is our indigenous people and their tradition,” the President related.

He said that Guyana must now deploy the brand and invest in the culture and tradition.

Further, he stated that Guyana has to start writing the story behind the brand, because once they can write the story behind a brand, then the brand is beyond something consumable. It evokes different attributes and appeals to social consciousness which are a big part of the market in which they are competing in.

He said that Guyana cannot develop health and wellness tourism without developing the cultural and traditional attributes of the indigenous people of the country and then branding it.

Additionally, President Ali noted that Guyana has a variety of teas that are not being capitalised on, as well as products that already have a place in the diaspora, which can be used to build a product that is sustainable, strong, and resilient.

He said that Guyana produces rare coffee beans that only two per cent of the world market have, and efforts are afoot to rebuild the country’s coffee industry.

“We are speaking with scientists out of Brazil and India to come in and to establish the nurseries here so we can go on massive large scale production because that must be part of the model,” he informed.

PARTNERSHIPS

Moreover, President Ali mentioned Guyana’s partnerships with Barbados, Saint Lucia, and Costa Rica.

He singled out Costa Rica, stating that that country is already well-positioned in the tourism industry.

President Ali stated that Guyana has demonstrated to this partner that it is not a competition but rather an opportunity to work together and share the market.

“How do we work with Costa Rica in creating a win-win scenario for markets that offer similar products?” he asked before noting that Guyana does not have the luxury of time to catch up, because some of the markets are so mature.

He said if Guyana “goes along a straight line,” the country may never catch up with the other countries.

Additionally, he said that the government has a very important role in tourism, one in which it must work with every stakeholder to ensure safety; not only safety from a security point of view, but safety from a cultural perspective.

“When tourists come they must feel safe in the country, safe in the club, in the restaurant, safe on the boat…safety has to be a culture so that even outside of the mainstream tourism, a tourist arriving must follow the same standards,” President Ali explained.

He related that the government and the tourism association must now work on developing a national action plan that targets the level of security it wants to achieve.

Meanwhile, President Ali noted that Guyana has taken a very deliberate approach to developing its infrastructure.

He said that at the end of May, he will be meeting with the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, to discuss the further expansion of the Lethem road.

He added that the government is working on sports tourism, horse racing, and motor racing, stating that they are going to aggressively pursue international and regional sporting events so that more traffic is brought into the country.

President Ali noted that once they get the tourism model right, they are going to do targeted marketing.