Safety and Security in tourism priority for Govt
─ in wake of being named ‘Best Eco-Tourism’ destination in the world
DPI, Guyana, Friday, March 15, 2019
Guyana has been hosting an increasing number of tourists over recent years and with the country being named the Best Eco-Tourism destination in the world, curiosity will most likely bring an influx of more tourists.
Last year the XXIV Inter-American Congress of Ministers and High-Level Authorities of Tourism was hosted in Guyana where a five-year (2018-2021) Work Plan was endorsed. As part of that plan, Guyana was mandated to do a Webinar on the subject of safety Security and Tourism
The Department of Tourism in the Ministry of Business recently held consultations with stakeholder agencies on the issue of Safety Security and Tourism in Guyana.
On Thursday, the Department met with several of these stakeholders to discuss some of the findings of those consultations.
According to Director General of the Department of Tourism, Donald Sinclair the consultations were held with stakeholders from the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA), the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG), the Private Sector Commission (PSC), the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the Ministries of Public Security, Citizenship and Business.
Sinclair noted that the consultation revealed that there are differing views from the various agencies on how safe Guyana is for visitors.
Some of the issues that were highlighted during the consultations were the effectiveness of the 2am curfew and training of tourist-police among others.
Assistant Director of the Guyana Tourism Authority, Carla Chandra noted that there is an issue with Travel Advisories issued by some countries that paint a different picture of Guyana. She noted that on several occasions, visitors’ experiences are the opposite of what they read about online.
“There is nothing we can do about the travel advisories that are issued by the ABC countries especially. So, what we are doing is that we have developed our own travel advisory, yes acknowledging that there is some level of concern for safety and security, but it’s like any other place that you would go to when you travel to foreign countries. You don’t walk with excessive jewellery, or have your phones out all the time or things of that nature. We are actually paying money to get our travel advisory to somewhere up at the top so when someone types safety and security in Guyana, overtime, I’m hoping that ours comes to the very top.”
The report is leading up to May 2 when the webinar will be done with Chile.
Natasha Smith
Images: Ameer Sattur