Guyana community-based tourism: “Partnership in development”

With a pop­u­la­tion of just over 1,200, Moraikobai is loc­ated on the Maha­icony River, about four hours by boat from the Guyanese cap­it­al Georgetown.

As repor­ted by GINA, Guyana’s Vice Pres­id­ent and Min­is­ter of Indi­gen­ous Peoples Affairs Sydney Alli­co­ck vis­ited the com­munity at the week­end with rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Tour­ism & Hos­pit­al­ity Asso­ci­ation of Guyana (THAG), the Guyana Tour­ism Author­ity (GTA), and a tour operator.

Alli­co­ck noted that Moraikobai is stra­tegic­ally placed for com­munity-based tour­ism and is the per­fect get-away for relaxation.

Moraikobai has been bet­ter known for its log­ging industry than its tour­ism attrac­tions, how­ever res­id­ents are becom­ing aware of the dangers of con­tinu­ous log­ging and are keen to diversify.

Locals in the loop

It seems the Co-oper­at­ive Repub­lic of Guyana’s tour­ism author­it­ies are keen to live up to their nation’s full offi­cial name.

As a “widely-accep­ted” pion­eer of com­munity-based tour­ism in Guyana in his own right — at least accord­ing to his offi­cial bio — Alli­co­ck said the most import­ant com­pon­ent for com­munity-based tour­ism was a community’s read­i­ness and will­ing­ness to wel­come and accept visitors.

Guyana’s Vice Pres­id­ent & Min­is­ter of Indi­gen­ous Peoples Affairs Sydney Alli­co­ck is a com­munity-based tour­ism pion­eer. Source: GINA

GINA repor­ted that Alli­co­ck et al scouted three poten­tial sites for an eco-lodge in Moraikobai, which will be delib­er­ated upon by the res­id­ents until con­sensus is reached as to the most appro­pri­ate one.

Alli­co­ck was also quick to sup­port the Moraikobai community’s request for inter­net access to pro­mote and mar­ket their product.

“Com­mu­nic­a­tion is crit­ic­al,” he said. “Here is where the vil­lage will have to do their mar­ket­ing and we will help them to do that so that oth­er tour oper­at­ors would be able to know that there is a des­tin­a­tion here.”

“Part­ner­ship in devel­op­ment is the way to go,” Alli­co­ck said. “And that is why we have been work­ing closely with the Guyana Tour­ism Author­ity, the Min­istry of Busi­ness and tour oper­at­ors. We also so have the Tour­ism and Hos­pit­al­ity Asso­ci­ation of Guyana which is like the key in mak­ing this happen.”

Andrea de Caires, rep­res­ent­ing both GTA and THAG, said Moraikobai has tre­mend­ous poten­tial for tour­ism; “they have all the pieces of the puzzle, they just have to put them in place,” she affirmed.

Sal­vador de Caires, rep­res­ent­ing the tour oper­at­or, noted that tour­ism in Moraikobai would help keep fam­il­ies together.

“There is no oppor­tun­ity in small remote vil­lages for them to earn money,” he said. “The men would have to leave their fam­ily to earn a living.

“How do you break that cycle? Well, com­munity tour­ism does that; it provides a job for them to stay in the com­munity and earn a living.”

Is Guyana committed to sustainable tourism?

Guyana Min­is­ter of Busi­ness & Tour­ism Domin­ic Gaskin. Source: GINA

In Janu­ary, GINA announced that the gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to the sus­tain­able tour­ism model.

Min­is­ter of Busi­ness (includ­ing tour­ism) Domin­ic Gaskin said that the tour­ism sec­tor could make a major con­tri­bu­tion to the “good life” prom­ised to cit­izens by the government.

Gaskin said: “There’s a clear­er sense of what Guyana’s tour­ism industry should grow up to become […] the year 2017 has been des­ig­nated the United Nations Inter­na­tion­al Year of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism for Devel­op­ment with the aim of increas­ing pub­lic aware­ness of the import­ance of inter­na­tion­al tour­ism in appre­ci­at­ing and under­stand­ing dif­fer­ent cultures.”

He said sus­tain­able tour­ism embod­ies a new regard for the envir­on­ment, soci­ety, and eco­nomy of a place; tour­ism can­not simply be to provide a “ven­ue for fun and frol­ic” for per­sons with whom we have very little in common.

From the Min­istry of Busi­ness web­site: “It is the mis­sion of the Depart­ment of Tour­ism in the Min­istry of Busi­ness to raise the pro­file of Guyana as a tour­ism des­tin­a­tion that emphas­izes the devel­op­ment of a sus­tain­able, and essen­tially, though not exclus­ively, nature-based product that exceeds vis­it­or expect­a­tion while mak­ing a sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tion to the nation­al eco­nomy and to the enhance­ment of the qual­ity of life of all Guyanese.”

Where is Guyana anyway?

Guyana. Source: Google Maps

The only coun­try in South Amer­ica in which Eng­lish is the offi­cial lan­guage, Guyana has a tiny pop­u­la­tion estim­ated at less than 750,000 in 2016.

Wedged between Brazil, Sur­i­n­ame, and Venezuela in north­east­ern main­land South Amer­ica, Guyana is nev­er­the­less con­sidered part of the Carib­bean due to its strong cul­tur­al, his­tor­ic­al, and polit­ic­al ties with Anglo-Carib­bean coun­tries and its mem­ber­ship of the Carib­bean Com­munity (CARICOM).

The “Co-oper­at­ive Repub­lic” is also a mem­ber of the Carib­bean Tour­ism Organization.

In terms of its tour­ism props, Lonely Plan­et’s cov­er­age of Guyana leads with: “Few places on the plan­et offer raw adven­ture as authen­t­ic as densely for­es­ted Guyana. Although the coun­try has a troubled his­tory of polit­ic­al instabil­ity and inter-eth­nic ten­sion, under­neath the head­lines of cor­rup­tion and eco­nom­ic mis­man­age­ment is a joy­ful and motiv­ated mix of people who are turn­ing the coun­try into the con­tin­ent’s best-kept eco­tour­ism des­tin­a­tion secret.”