Business Minister claims tourism to rake in more foreign currency than sugar

Business Minister, with responsibility for tourism, Dominic Gaskin told stakeholders at the Department of Tourism’s Regional Tourism Planning Business Session that with the current projections the tourism industry is expected to bring in more foreign currency than the sugar industry. He also appealed to the stakeholders to ensure that they begin to change their mind-sets to further develop Guyana’s tourism product.
According to the Minister, Guyana is moving towards nature tourism and the challenges in marketing that product are tremendous. Therefore, a National Tourism Policy was drafted to provide a comprehensive approach to maximise the benefits of the tourism industry.

“We are projecting about 240,000 visitors to Guyana for this year as I said not necessarily eco-tourists, but wherever they are coming from, they are our tourists and they are spending money in our economy. If each of those 240,000 spend US$500 in our economy, you can do the math that is US$120,000, in our economy. It is certainly more than sugar is earning and sugar is considered an important national industry…everyone takes sugar seriously and here is a sector that is earning more than sugar even in its infant stage,” Gaskin stated.
He said it was important that the stakeholders understand what the Government planned to do in the industry. He said every administrative region has its own structure and economy and as such, the Government needed to take an integrated approach when dealing with the advancement of the tourism sector.
“Every region has its own structure, has its own economy, has its own stakeholders and tourism attraction. We want to engage the regions, so rather than us saying to you that we want to build on this or that, we want to hear what you think the tourism opportunities are in your regions because you know your region better than we do and that is what this series of engagement is all about,” the Minister stated.
Meanwhile, Director General of the Department of Tourism, Donald Sinclair explained that the activity aimed to produce a final register of endorsed tourism hotspots throughout the country. He added that the consultation process has been ongoing for the past four months.
The workshop is part of a series of workshops that were conducted in every administrative region. The various regions were asked to identify their tourism hotspots, which they did and submitted to the Department of Tourism. Following the submission, the Government will now develop a programme to enhance the sites to improve the overall product.