Search results

Profiles the WHATT theme issue ‘ What innovative strategies are needed to develop tourism in Guyana for 2025?’ with reference to the experiences of the theme theme editors and writing team.

Uses structured questions to enable the theme editors to reflect on the rationale for the theme issue question, the starting-point, the selection of the writing team and material and the editorial process.

Examines the past and current state of tourism from the standpoint of a number of sector components – community-based tourism, policy, human resources, entrepreneurship among others; assesses the local and global environment impacting upon the development of the industry and explores what the theme editors regard as viable paths to a tourism sector in the year 2025.

This theme issue has a number of practical implications. Scholars and researchers may be inspired to undertake comparative studies of the trajectories of tourism development observed in emergent tourism destinations like Guyana. Those who work in tourism planning and administration will find the retrospections and proposals made of considerable value, even as those, in some cases, provoke lively debate.

This theme issue adds to the growing corpus of research and writing that focuses upon the Caribbean. While the Caribbean as a whole, or individual States, may have been the subject of research, there has been comparatively little written about Guyana as a tourism destination. This gradual increase in scholarly interest may indeed parallel the growth of the tourism industry in Guyana itself. The raft of consultants’ reports is now enriched and diversified in this theme issue that asks the hard questions and makes bold proposals.

This paper aims to provide answers to the strategic question: “What innovative strategies are needed to develop tourism in Guyana for 2025?”. It captures the essence of scholarly contributions made by experts and provides a concluding summary to WHATT theme issue on tourism in Guyana.

This paper draws from concepts, suggestions and solutions written by authors of seven proceeding papers. These authors cumulatively have valuable and diverse experience in managing, operating and teaching many key aspects of tourism industry. This paper presents summaries responding to seven questions on the following topics: understanding past tourism in Guyana; tourism policy and the path to sustainable tourism development; development of community-based tourism (CBT); impact in tourism from entrepreneurship ecosystem; strategies for boosting travel to Guyana from diasporic areas; justification for including Jonestown as part of dark tourism; and human resource development for tourism and hospitality.

In conclusion, a “Vision 2025 tool box for tourism in Guyana” concept is presented. Several specific recommendations related to tourism in Guyana are made.

As this paper is a combination of views from seven papers, there is no common conclusion. For further analysis, it is recommended that relevant papers of this theme issue be reviewed.

Readers who are interested in tourism in Guyana would benefit from this paper.

The Jonestown massacre of 1978 was the largest such event in modern history; it assumes the status of a prototype in many discussions of cult dynamics and mass suicide. This paper aims to make the case that Jonestown should be memorialised and made into a dark tourism attraction.

This paper is principally the outcome of secondary research conducted over a number of years on the theme of dark tourism. The paper also benefited from direct interviews and conversations with political and ex-military personnel in Guyana who were in some way involved with Jonestown.

The research establishes that Jonestown remains a matter of great sensitivity and even national embarrassment, with many in the tourism sector reluctant to highlight what they regard as a very negative association, in the market, of Guyana with Jonestown and Jonestown only.

Expressed in context, the paper discusses the place of Jonestown in dark tourism and proposes an operational formula by which the semiotic of Jonestown, as contained in the tourist narrative, transforms tourism into catharsis.

For the author, Jonestown is tourism-imperative because not much longer after that apocalyptic event, the “Jonestown massacre” became a reference in the discourse on dark tourism. Jonestown is too large and archetypal an event to escape research and discussion of its place in the realm of dark tourism. This paper therefore explores, from both theoretical and policy perspectives, the ways in which the narratives of dark tourism can serve to expiate guilt by confronting it and therefore still deserve a place in the tourism imaginary of 2025. As such, the paper should be of value to not only scholars and researchers but also those engaged in tourism planning and destination management.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the strategies and lines of action that should be implemented if 2025 is to be a landmark year for diasporic travel to Guyana.

The primary methodology was that of document analysis drawn on the literature on diaspora tourism in Guyana and the Caribbean and interviews and discussions with relevant experts.

The diaspora market is being increasingly recognised as an important target for Guyana’s tourism industry. Strategies include facilitation of travel from and engagement with more “diaspora” countries; increased and targeted advertising to the diaspora including the promotion of special events; and the development of tourism councils in key diaspora countries.

There are many myths and misconceptions about the diaspora and their contribution to the tourism industry. Synthesising the data that highlight the contribution of this segment along with strategies and lines of action can seek to foster a greater appreciation and understanding of the contribution of the diaspora market.

This paper offers an opportunity for researchers and practitioners to explore the concept of engaging the diaspora as a viable target market in the tourism industry.

This paper provides the backdrop to the other seven articles in this WHATT 2018 theme issue dedicated to Guyana. This paper looks back and ahead at the development of tourism in Guyana. The purpose of this paper is to enable the reader to have a clear understanding of the provenance of the industry over the past 50 years and how that evolution informs the possible direction and future of the industry up to the year 2025 and beyond.

As would be expected of any study that examines the antecedence of a phenomenon, there is reliance to a significant degree upon historical material and interviews. The former comprises studies done by tourism consultants and researchers in Guyana, as well as publications from government agencies and sources. Further, especially in the quest for information relating to contemporary policies and developments, the interview method has been used.

This paper establishes that the evolution of tourism in Guyana is a movement from obscurity and insignificance to prominence and vibrancy. From being off the tourism map for many decades, Guyana is now enhancing its profile in the Caribbean region and carving a “green niche” for itself in the nature and adventure travel market.

This paper provides special value to persons working in the development of tourism, in either the public or private sector.

The purpose of this paper is to provide answers to the following questions: How was the tourism and hospitality industry in Guyana impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic? What recovery strategies have been designed? What are the prospects for the successful implementation of those strategies?

The paper is based upon a qualitative analysis of the recommendations and formal proposals that were issued from a variety of sources within government, private sector and academia during the 2019–2021 period of the pandemic.

The main findings of this paper are that an industry consensus exists regarding the severity of the impact of the pandemic and the need for a collaborative strategy to be designed and innovative measures implemented in order to accelerate industry recovery. This recovery entails attracting to Destination Guyana both a new wave of health-aware travellers as well as visitors from traditional markets and the diaspora. Analysis suggests that there is a broad consensus and convergence of objectives that embrace both government and private sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a significant quantity of literature and has seen a conspicuous incorporation of scientific medical data into tourism analysis. This is only to be expected in the circumstance of a global health emergency that has devastated the global tourism industry. The value of this article lies principally in its proposal of innovative methods and strategies that are critical to tourism recovery.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the tourism sector in the Amazon regions of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Suriname and then discuss the manner in which tourism activity assists the protection of the Amazon rainforests. The paper also describes the manner in which the first World Hospitality and Tourism Themes Roundtable on Tourism in the Amazon is organized in 2009.

Teams of researchers from the Ministries of Tourism, the private sector and academia in the Member Countries of Treaty for Amazon Cooperation collaborated to address, in ten‐page papers, the question “Does sustainable tourism offer solutions for the protection of the Amazon rainforest?”

The paper provides valuable information on the current state of tourism policy and practice in the Amazon Member Countries. It also articulates the challenges that attend the development of sustainable tourism as a mechanism for the protection of the Amazon.

Tourism policy officials and managers, should benefit from the discussions of the prospects and challenges that attend the practice of sustainable tourism in the Amazon region. They will also find interesting guidelines and recommendations for action based upon the many destinations and tourism regions under examination.

The issue of sustainable tourism and the rainforest is very topical and this paper will be of immense value to scholars, researchers and tourism practitioners.

The Tourism Studies Unit of the University of Guyana coordinated the 2003 World‐wide Hospitality and Tourism Trends (WHATT) Roundtable discussion of the Guianas. The discussion focused mainly on the requirements and challenges for developing sustainable tourism in Guyana and Surinam. The complexities involved in developing a joint approach to the development of sustainable tourism in a twin destination arrangement were discussed. The consensus of the roundtable was that commonalities existing in both the historical experience and tourism product of the Guianas make all the more imperative a sustainable tourism agenda for those territories. That agenda will have special meaning and significance in view of the existence of a territorial dispute involving Guyana and Surinam.

The paper aims to present answers to the strategic question: “Does sustainable tourism offer solutions for the protection of the Amazon rainforest?” It also aims to capture the essence of conclusions of eight papers written by 11 tourism experts to the Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes (WHATT) issue on tourism in the Amazon, South America.

The paper integrates all solutions suggested in these eight papers and sought to provide a succinct response to the strategic question.

While providing a helicopter view of the key challenges of sustainable tourism development in the Amazon, this paper proposes implementable solutions to those challenges. Using the 2009 WHATT roundtable discussion in Brasilia as the foundation, this paper addresses some of the most significant issues affecting the Amazon and its people in the context of tourism in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Suriname. In conclusion, 12 key suggestions are made for the Amazon, which envisions healthy and sustainable growth of tourism for its people.

This paper provides fresh perspectives on many relevant issues by analysing inputs, viewpoints, comments, and suggestions of many regional tourism experts. Readers with interests in the Amazon or similar tourism destinations around the world would benefit from this paper.