Linden tourism sector on the way to success
―Agro, Aqua, Environmental and Industrial tourism to be explored
―hosts the Tourism Awareness Business and Cultural Exposition
DPI, Guyana, Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Linden is on its way to great things in the tourism sector.
That is the encouraging news that Director-General of the Department of Tourism, Donald Sinclair, and other officials delivered to the community at the Tourism Awareness Business and Cultural Exposition in Region 10, one of the highlights of Tourism Month.
According to Sinclair, since tourism has been placed on the front burner, many Lindeners are returning home to experience the beauty and development of the town. He related that a Diaspora Tourism Development Officer is assisting Lindeners overseas who are interested in returning as tourists.
“As the awareness grows in Linden, we hope there will be more persons coming to eat what you produce, to stay in the guesthouses and the hotels that you manage, to take the tours of the Demerara River. So, the providers of those services could bring in income, so that they could support the producers of craft. There are also growers of coconuts and producers of soap and coconut oil; therefore, those efforts would help to boost the tourism in Linden,” Sinclair encouraged.
Sharing similar optimism with Lindeners, Representative of the Caribbean Agriculture Research and Development Institute (CARDI) Cyril Roberts noted that the Caribbean Agriculture Research and Development Institute (CARDI) has been assisting farmers in the township, in the area of Agro-tourism. Roberts said that CARDI is working with two coconut farmers in Linden. They are Owen De Souza, a Block 22 coconut farmer and agro processor and Williams Adams, a Dalgin coconut farmer.
CARDI’s focus is on coconut production, planting, processing and exportation. All of this, he said, is in keeping with agro-tourism in Region Ten.
“In terms of agro-tourism, CARDI is happy to be supportive of this area because it lends another boat so the speak to the farmers. Apart from planting his coconuts and intercropping his coconuts and making use of the shredded husk, you can actually use activities on the farm to attract tourism and thereby increase your income – essentially with agro-tourism… So, the marriage of agriculture and tourism is something we should always embrace and encourage and support,” Roberts said.
Environmentalist, Samuel Wright, honed in on environmental tourism and how it is intertwined with aqua tourism and the Linden River Front Development. Wright who has been a champion for the development of the Linden River Front for over a decade and the founder of the Linden River Front Festival highlighted that the ‘river front’ is the cradle of every other form of tourism in Linden since everything originates in this location.
Pointing to aqua tourism – fishing on the river front – as an attractive venture he noted that since all of the creeks in Linden are drained by the river, “…we need to protect those areas because flooding that occurs in Kara Kara, or places, like Silver Town and Victory Valley are all related to the blocking of the drains that run to the river front.”
Industrial tourism was also cited. According to Wright, several of the historical buildings from the colonial era that still stand on the river front can be tied into architectural tourism. ” At Christianburg on the river front, some of the oldest housing stocks exist. Imagine if we can promote that history, how interested the Scottish and the Germans and other folks would be to come to Linden. Our tourism product is really wide… we have architectural tourism right here on the river front.”
In addition to the exposition, the Linden Tourism Office, in collaboration with the Tourism Association undertook several other projects. The first was a workshop for secondary school students who were engaged in environmental tourism.
high school workshop where students were engaged on particularly environmental tourism. On November 24 there will be a motor cross sporting event at Speightland and, the month will conclude with a black and gold affair seniors party on November 30.