NO WAY!

Mar 29, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

 

 

 

It was once said that Guyana did not have white beaches and blue seas, and as such could not compete in the “sand and sea” tourism which was promoted in the islands of the Caribbean.
But while not having these things, it was also said that Guyana had flora and fauna. It had thick forests and numerous rivers and as such had great potential for ecotourism.
We have been hearing about Guyana’s ecotourism potential for as long as we have been harking about the mineral wealth in the country. Yet, ecotourism has not gotten past the eco part.
At one time, there were at least two major resorts located in the Essequibo, each offering retreats into nature. One man even came and described it as a paradise on earth. These were world-class facilities, except they were empty most of the time.
The economics did not work out as planned. When you have political leaders who are guessing their way rather than planning, you are always going to run into problems.
The two resorts referred to above have both been placed on the auction block. Ecotourism’s low volume and high prices were never going to sustain these two entities much less make an impact in Guyana.
It is therefore extremely interesting that the political birds are now whistling a different tune. Guyana is now promoting beach tourism. As incomprehensible as this may sound, there is an objective in mind. That objective is to breathe credibility into the plans to construct a new hotel at Kingston which is supposed to, when completed, be branded by the Marriott Grouping.
This hotel is a hard sell to Guyanese. And so to make it appear as if there are excellent prospects for the hotel, Guyanese are told that we cannot just be looking at what exists today. We cannot, in other words, concentrate on the dismal occupancy rates which hotels now enjoy in Guyana.
We have to plan for a bright future. That future may involve Guyana finding oil and when Guyana finds oil no doubt the tourists are going to come sliding into the hotel on a slick of oil money.
It is good to dream but much better to be practical. The story about us having to plan for the future is the same “doosra” that was bowled to the Guyanese people in the run up to Cricket World Cup co-hosted in Guyana five years ago.
The Guyanese people were told, then, that we have to prepare for the influx of tourists that would arrive for the matches. They were also told that they had to plan for the exposure Guyana would obtain from hosting the matches. They had to cater for the emergence of the tourism industry as a result of the worldwide coverage we would receive from the televising of the cricket matches.
The public was told that this cricket tournament would change the fortunes of Guyana and that it would open the floodgates to tourism.
Well, the anticipated deluge of tourists never came, never even came for the few matches that Guyana hosted much less afterwards. As a result, many businesses and individuals who foolishly went to their banks to take out multimillion-dollar loans for bread and breakfast services are now burdened with empty rooms and debt payments.
Guyanese are therefore not going to be convinced that planning for a bright future justifies sinking four billion dollars of hard-earned taxpayers’ monies into a hotel deal that allows preferred investors to have a first claim on resources should the entity go into bankruptcy.
The NIS contributors lost four billion dollars as a result of poor investments and could not even get a commission of inquiry while all the islands of the Caribbean who suffered as a result of the collapse of CLICO have launched inquiries into their disappearing funds.
Why then should another four billion dollars of public funds be sunk into the proposed hotel for the mudflats (sorry, mud beaches) of Kingston?
The newest justification being attempted is the promotion of beach tourism. But what beaches are we talking about? The sling- mud beach of Kingston just a stone’s throw away from where untreated sewage is dumped into the Demerara River? Which tourist is going into that water?
What other beaches are we speaking about? Are we suddenly discovering that we have a wide expanse of brown beach at # 63 Village on the Corentyne?
If this beach was so important why was it never developed properly? Why were the access roads and the beach itself neglected?
No justification offered for the proposed Marriott- branded hotel is going to find attraction in Guyana and as such the government should stay clear of using public funds for this venture.
It would be interesting to see how many private investors are going to be interested if the government decides that this deal will be financed from a purely private portfolio (PPP). After all, if this is such a good deal, investors should be lining up to get a bite of the cherry.
The truth is that many investors are not going to go anywhere near this deal unless the government underwrites it. Once the government pulls out the deal is dead.
This deal does not pass muster. It should not go through. AHI should be dissolved immediately before taxpayers’ funds go down the drain… again.

---

---