While press releases flutter down about one or another aspect of the tourist industry from time to time, one is still left to wonder whether there is any coherent, integrated policy in relation to it. If there is, it hasn’t been relayed to the public. Most recently there was a release about a ‘birding’ group which extolled the virtues of Guyana’s hinterland – no doubt about those – but there have also been the usual statements about attracting tourists for Mashramani and at the various holiday periods which might seem to be out of consonance with interior tourism.
Of course, it can legitimately be argued that coastal holiday events are intended to attract expatriate Guyanese; no one could pretend, for example, that foreign-born tourists would be tempted by Mashramani or the Main Big Lime, for example, when competition of the order of Carnival in neighbouring Trinidad and Brazil exists. Guyana’s eco-tourism product, on the other hand, is unique, and appeals to specialist groups, the ‘birders’ being one example. In addition, this country’s interior is also largely geographically insulated, and can be treated separately in many regards from the coastal littoral. In fact, theoretically, eco-tourists could land at the CJ airport and be taken straight to the hinterland, bypassing the capital and the coast altogether.
However, by its very nature eco-tourism has restricted potential in terms of numbers; if there are too many visitors they will destroy the very environment they have come to enjoy. At the moment, venues are very limited, but presumably they will increase over time, and spread to all corners of the interior. Has the Ministry of Tourism worked out exactly where in the future likely sites would be located, and most of all, just what kind of burden in terms of numbers each possible locale can carry, as well as the hinterland overall? One imagines they are facing just this question already in the case of Kaieteur Falls, whose delicate ecosystem in the immediate vicinity could easily be damaged by the presence of too many visitors.
In connection with the latest birding expedition, reference was also made to cultural tourism, which of course is not something associated with the hinterland alone. Much has been written about the dangers of this form of tourism to tribal societies; however, in this instance the foreigners were exposed to community tourism, as it is called, at Rewa, and one can certainly see the potential for the expansion of this into other locations. Once the communities themselves have control of the product, the risk of doing violence to their cultural integrity and lifestyle is much reduced, and the members are provided with a means of income.
Where cultural tourism on the coast is concerned, however – Mashramani and celebrations of that ilk apart – there has been no attempt at evolving a strategy. The history of the coastland is intimately connected with the history of the plantation, and in particular the history of sugar. Even Georgetown, as one Dutch consultant pointed out some years ago, is a plantation city – the only one in the world, it might be added. There is too the fact that life on the coast has always been a hydraulic challenge; to make the plantation possible, the sea had to be kept out, and the inland water had to be drained off. While this does not make Guyana unique in the world, one feels that among developing countries there cannot be very many whose drainage and sea defence infrastructure is so elaborate and extensive.
In other words, there is a story to be told here, as much for schoolchildren it might be noted, as for tourists. But officialdom does not appear in the least interested in telling it, or in preserving and reconstructing the material heritage related to it. There is no sugar museum in this country, for example; no plantation houses which tourists can visit; no logies (of various designs) so visitors can have an idea of the conditions under which the Africans and Indians lived at various periods; in short, no historical sugar centre, perhaps complete with typical nineteenth century village shop which visitors can wander around. Most of it would have to be reconstructed (bar the estate houses, if the authorities were of a mind to preserve them), but that is what has been done in other places with great success. Together with the story of our war with the sea and our drainage and irrigation (cleaned up, of course), there is endless potential for offering tourists something really quite unusual which they will not find elsewhere in the Caribbean, and arguably elsewhere in the world.
And as has been said before, developing historical Georgetown within the plantation framework is also perfectly doable, if the authorities had a mind to do it. However, it seems they don’t. The capital for the most part was carved out of the front lands of plantations, and this is reflected in the nomenclature and the drainage system, among other things. (The Forty Foot Canal, for example, was dug by hand by Africans in the 1770s.) None of this seems to interest the powers-that-be. Their attitude to culture is perhaps summed up in the violation of Castellani House, which was commented on in these columns some weeks ago. Guyana actually has rather a remarkable local art tradition which is well represented in the National Collection (and would certainly be of interest to tourists), were it not for the fact that the grounds of Castellani are now encumbered with the unsightly contours of an intelligence agency.
Tourism is one of the world’s truly fast-growing industries, but Guyana cannot become a viable destination unless there is a coherent policy where what has to be done is made clear and where the priorities are set out. Strategies would have to be devised to help achieve those ends, and approaches for securing funding, both private and public, to invest in specific projects were suggested. But first of all, the public would like to see a detailed policy paper from the Ministry of Tourism.
