As Guyana continues the current tourism expansion push, persons in the industry must be encouraged by the number of interesting travel outreaches that have come to Guyana in recent times – cruise ship in Georgetown last year; birding groups in the Rupununi; visiting ocean-going yachts; a National Geographic cruise ship in the Essequibo, etc. The significance is that instead of just watching slick travel shows about Guyana on television, these persons are taking the meaningful step of paying money to come here. It’s an exercise in pleasure for them that has economic benefit for us. This week we saw yet another example of it as the cruise ship MV Minerva of the Swan Hellenic line tied up alongside the La Penitence wharf with a group of affluent visitors.
The vessel, carrying 335 passengers (most of them British) and 103 crew (most of them Filipino) spent 2 days here, with their local arrangements being handled by Teri and Gavin O’Brien of Wilderness Explorers. The tourists took in Kaieteur, Arrow Point, a Georgetown city tour, 
and the Princess Hotel, and were shuttled to various craft centres and local shops.
On board, as part of the Guyana exposure experience, Wilderness gave them a brief look at Guyanese culture with my wife, Annette, doing a Power Point presentation on the Amerindian culture, and with me bringing them a window into our culture with songs and chat delving into our attitudes, our diversity, and our sense of humour. On the latter point, I made sure to say to the English that despite our complaints about colonialism, we are pleased that they left us tea, cricket, and the charming practice of saying “good morning” and “good night” to strangers in public.
It was an enjoyable experience in the social sense (the English are very good at laughing at themselves; at least, outwardly) but there were a number of other aspects worth noting for local consumption. One was the purely economic factor of the tourism reality, particularly in a time where that industry is being seen more and more as the salvation for the Caribbean region generally. The persons travelling on this ship, predominantly British, but also including some Americans and Canadians and one Brazilian, were mostly senior citizens with considerable money to spend. The Brits, for example, flew non-stop to Manaus, boarded the ship there, and made stops in Brazil, Guyana, Trinidad, Grenada, St Lucia and Barbados, and then flew back to the UK. I didn’t ask the price, but I know it was substantial.
The number of persons on the trip was small as annual tourism numbers go, but the individual outlay involved here is considerable and it tells us why tourism is now the world’s biggest single industry – in the UK, for instance, it employs 2.1 million people. Indeed, it is often not noted that the biggest single factor behind the higher standard of living in many Caribbean countries (Barbados, St Lucia, Antigua, St Maarten, Bahamas, Puerto Rico) is the presence of a thriving tourism economy based on sea-and-sand. The statistic that the tiny Cayman Islands, with a population of only 60,000, and no natural resources, and no industry, still has one of the highest annual incomes in the region, shows the impact of the tourism dollar.
Of course, the Minerva visit to Guyana has to be kept in perspective. This was an all-expenses-paid trip on a ship, so the visitors used no hotel rooms when they were here, rented no cars, and probably didn’t spend much on food ashore (cruise visitors are famously overfed on board), but the premise here is that these affluent visitors will find our country and its culture appealing and will return by air for a longer onshore stay to our long-term economic benefit. Just this week, I’m watching a World Under-16 soccer tournament being staged in tiny Costa Rica in a magnificent stadium that you know is in place only because of that country’s tourism dollars.
Also, as has been said elsewhere and often, Guyana’s current difficulties with the environment, and the limits of our airlift, will remain massive barriers to substantial tourism numbers. In fact, the very persons of affluence we are courting on outings such as offered by the Minerva will be the quickest ones to be deterred by the litter and the awkward flights. But the message continues to emerge, as it did on board that ship last week, that we have a unique tourism product here in (a) the diversity and vibrancy of our culture (I think Annette got them interested in pepperpot) and in (b) the range of landscape in this country surpassing anything found in the region. Also, as opposed to 25 years ago, we have the technological advances of today on our side making for the rampant availability of free information about us on the internet; we can promote ourselves at relatively no cost, and instantly. All these people who are interested in us because of our distinctive culture and landscapes are potential customers for our products online even if they never come here. You can say that that is not, strictly speaking, tourism; I say it is still, strictly speaking, income.
The final aspect to note is the one of people interacting. Part of my presentation to the group of travellers included some language lessons, one of which was about the practice of brevity in Caribbean dialects. I used the example of “she sit down bad” as being the shortest way (only four words) to describe something that would take at least 25 in Standard English. At the end of my stint, a very polite Englishman (they’re not all sanctimonious) came up to me and wanted to make sure he had the phrase right. He said, “You know, in England, it happens sometimes on the trains that you see ladies, how should I put it, showing a bit too much. Now when that happens, I can say to my daughter, ‘She sit down bad.’ and the folks nearby will be completely in the dark.” He gave me a pat on the back, “That’s brilliant.” and walked away smiling. It was, indeed, brilliant. Because he came to Guyana, there is now an Englishman, back in his homeland, equipped for an opportunity to say “She sit down bad.” You have to love that.
