Dear Editor,
The Caribbean Tourism Industry must be sinking to desperate measures when it has to resort to the destructive rum to attract tourists. The headline “Guyana maps role in Caribbean Rum Route” appears amidst news of drunk people killing family members. The ugly contradiction seems some testament to the desperation of survival in the 21st century tourism industry.
The World Health Organisation has reported that the alcohol poses a greater health burden than tobacco in the Americas (including the Caribbean). In the week that Guyana wants to promote the substance which has caused so much destruction, Guyana also gets a “World No Tobacco Day Award”. Will stakeholders in Guyana ever meet for ‘No-Alcohol’?
Are Guyana and the Caribbean so ugly, so inhospitable, so lack of anything left for tourists, that we have to create routes around rum and alcohol? Will the money from the rum tourism increase the number of health and social service facilities to cope with the losses coming from rum?
Yours faithfully,
Vidyaratha Kissoon
