It’s an opportunity to package and sell our Dutch heritage -THAG President
Even as stakeholders in the local tourism sector worry about the decline in visitor arrivals, the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) is currently pursuing new approaches to attracting visitors to Guyana.
THAG President Renata Chuck-A-Sang has told Stabroek Business that the Association is seeking to work with tour operators in the Caribbean in an effort to create multi-destination packages for tourists visiting destinations elsewhere in the region and the hemisphere.
“The idea is to try to add Guyana to the itinerary of persons who may have already traveled from Europe and elsewhere to this part of the world and who may wish to enjoy another dimension to their tourist experience,” THAG President Renata Chuck-A-Sang told Stabroek Business.
Local tour operators have identified deficiencies in the marketing of the Guyana tourism product and airline travel difficulties as being among the factors inhibiting visitor arrivals in Guyana and Chuck-A-Sang told Stabroek Business that THAG was seeking to work with the regional Incoming Tour Operators Association to seek to create multi-destination packages for visitors to the region. She said that THAG was particularly interested in the possibility of working with the tourist industry in Suriname in order to seek to attract visitors to the neighbouring South American Republic from Holland.
Last week Chuck-A-Sang led a THAG delegation to the Suriname Trade Fair in Paramaribo, an exercise, which she said, allowed the Association to look more closely at the prospects for multi-destination tourism. According to Chuck-A-Sang more than 300 visitors from Holland arrive in Suriname daily and that the presence of such a large number of European visitors “so close to us” meant that we could perhaps seek to create a niche market.
But according to Chuck-A-Sang taking advantage of the prospects of multi-destination required “a certain level of preparedness” on the part of the local tourism sector. She said that one of the deficiencies of the local tourist sector is its shortage of skills in creating and marketing tourist packages which the visitor to the region might see as adding to their experience. “In the case of the large number of visitors from Holland who go to Suriname, I’m thinking, for example that we might be able to package and market our own Dutch heritage including the buildings and landmarks in such a manner as to add to their travel experience. I am also thinking that if we are to exploit that particular niche we may need to have a ferry between Guyana and Suriname travel more frequently.”
According to Chuck-A-Sang THAG’s focus on niche markets based on multi-destination tourism had arisen out of the need to find ways of responding to some of the “particularly difficult challenges” facing the local industry. “It is for example, cheaper to go to Suriname and to other tourist destinations in the region and to work with tour operators in the region than to travel to London to market our tourism product,” Chuck-A-Sang said.
