Visitor arrivals to Guyana increase by 17 percent –Business Minister

Dec 04, 2018 News

Business Minister, Dominic Gaskin, revealed yesterday that visitor arrivals to Guyana have been rising steadily over the years with the figures for up to September last showing an increase of 17% over the same period last year. With such good news, the Minister said he is optimistic about the sector’s continued contribution to the economy.
Gaskin made these and other comments during his contribution to the budget 2019 debates. While Gaskin was unable to complete his speech within the 35-minute time slot, he did note that the increase in visitor arrivals is “good news for Guyana because visitors bring money into our economy.”
The Business Minister said, “Visitors have to eat, sleep and travel around the town or the country and each of these activities costs money and employs Guyanese people. Tourists also shop and enjoy local entertainment.
So an additional 30,000 visitors arriving in Guyana this year means that an additional US$15M is circulating in Guyana this year over last year if we are to assume an average spending of around US$500 per visitor.”
Gaskin continued, “And if we look at the figures in their totality, tourism will bring in around US$150M this year to be spent in our economy. This does not include airfares or the taxes applied to airfares. These taxes alone will bring in around US$15M this year.

Business Minister, Dominic Gaskin

So what I am saying is that apart from gold and rice, tourism brings the highest amount of foreign earnings into Guyana’s economy and this amount is growing every year at a handsome rate. So tourism is providing opportunities for Guyanese, in particular young Guyanese, and will continue to do so in 2019.”
The Business Minister added, “Our Government realizes the importance of this sector and its capacity to create and sustain employment. We also recognize the need to develop Guyana’s tourism product to keep up with increasing visitor arrivals, and most of all, we recognize the economic opportunities that tourism can create in traditionally disadvantaged areas such as the hinterland where our indigenous population lives.”
Gaskin said it is for this reason there has been a steady increase in the budgetary appropriation for the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) from $123M in 2014 to over $300M in 2019.
He reminded that the responsibility for tourism development in Guyana falls under the Ministry of Business and is carried out by the Department of Tourism and the Guyana Tourism Authority, with the Department being responsible for policy and strategic direction and the Authority responsible for implementation in the areas of marketing, product development and licensing and regulation.
Gaskin said, “And just as an aside, when I inherited responsibility for this agency, it had never, I repeat, never since its inception in 2002, presented to the National Assembly, its audited financial statements.
“It did not even have audited financial statements for the years 2002 to 2015, and we have had to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort going back and putting this in order, and we anticipate that sometime in 2019, we will finally be up-to-date with the annual reports for all the agencies of the Ministry of Business.”
The Business Minister added, “I raise this to illustrate the scant regard that the previous administration gave to accountability and transparency while in government and to say to that political party, that its record speaks volumes, lest we forget.
(I also wish to) reassure this house that while we may be spending much more money on tourism than the previous government, we are also ensuring that there is accountability and transparency in the spending of that money.”
That said, Gaskin noted that for 2019, the GTA and the Department of Tourism will receive budgetary allocations of $305M and $93M respectively.

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