THE BOSS MAN BELIEVED HE WAS IN OUTER SPACE

Nov 16, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

As the boss man of this newspaper sat in the passenger gallery of the Grantley Adams International Airport, a huge British Airways aircraft landed. The size of this plane was monstrous and at one stage, the boss man, accustomed to the small crafts that land at our own national airport, presumed that it was some sort of space ship.
Guyana is struggling to attract tourists to our country. We badly need these tourists to come to Guyana to boost the tourism sector and the local economy. Yet a plane the size of that super jet that almost caused Uncle Glenn to believe that he was in outer space is unable to land at our own airport because it is too big.
To accommodate an aircraft of that size, Guyana would need to extend its runway. Yet, instead of investing in this critical infrastructural improvement, the government this year budgeted to build airstrips in Leguan and Wakenaan. And the Europeans, knowing fully well that market size is critical to ensuring the viability of any airport expansion or the landing of super jets in Guyana, have provided funding for the development of another international airport at Ogle, about an hour’s drive from the underutilised national airport at Timehri.
We recently received word from the Minister of Tourism that Guyana’s growth of tourist arrivals surpassed that of other Caricom countries. But he did not provide the figure of the overall arrivals or the projections for the end of this year, something that should not be hard to estimate.
While the growth of tourist arrivals to Guyana may be impressive, in terms of its overall impact on the local economy, what matters is not the growth rate of arrivals but the absolute numbers. A few years ago, under the stewardship of Manzoor Nadir, Guyana had chalked up in excess of 120,000 arrivals for one year.
We know that the hosting of Cricket World Cup 2007 brought a great many Guyanese back home, yet the overall arrival numbers were not that great. In fact, there were some delays in releasing those numbers. It is important therefore that instead of merely speaking about the growth rate of arrivals, Guyana looks at the aggregate number of tourist arrivals to see whether more visitors are coming to Guyana each year.
Given the global financial crisis, it was anticipated that many Caribbean islands would suffer from a decline in tourist arrivals. Thus there should be no excitement in the fact that Guyana’s growth rate for visitors would be higher than its Caribbean counterparts.
The real test however for Guyana has to be in terms of overall numbers. If by the end of the Christmas season, the Ministry of Tourism can show that more than 140,000 visitors came to Guyana for 2009 then we can say that Guyana is going places.
The tourist sector right now is in shambles. Occupancy rates at most hotels are not high and many resorts have been put up for sale. This is a sign of contraction of sections of the industry which is critical to the overall tourism strategy.
Guyana’s strength however, remains in family-based tourism and in increased traffic from the Caribbean. And we can capitalise on the great demand of Guyanese in New York, Toronto and London who wish to come back home if we can provide cheaper flights back home. The cost of coming from North America is prohibitive, and so too is the cost of flying in from one of the islands of the Caribbean.
This is why Guyana needs to look at larger jets making trips, for there is the possibility that with the use of an aircraft that can carry larger numbers, the cost per passenger can decline. But how will these monstrous jets land at our main airport. Right now they cannot.
The inability of Guyana to accommodate these super aircraft is an indication of the lack of forward planning. We have encouraged persons to build hotels, encouraged persons to come home, even identified three seasons in which efforts will be made to provide greater entertainment for visitors. Yet we have failed to do the basic thing: increase the length of our runways to accommodate the super aircraft.
Perhaps, a start is going to be made when the airstrip at Leguan is completed. Perhaps after the government has built that airstrip, it will consider going and beg some country for money to expand the runway to allow a supersonic jet to land. Perhaps it will all come right during the third term!

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THE BOSS MAN BELIEVED HE WAS IN OUTER SPACE

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