| With global trends indicating that the tourism sector will continue to hold its own, and with long-haul travel destinations like Guyana as an emerging sector, Tourism Minister Manniram Prashad and Executive Director of the Guyana Tourism Authority, Indranauth Haralsingh, have returned from the World Travel Market (WTM) forum reporting success in marketing Guyana.WTM, which ended last week, is staged annually in London, enabling the whole global travel trade industry to meet, network, negotiate, conduct business and stay abreast with the latest developments in the travel industry.Guyana’s decision to make its presence felt at WTM paid off, with the new WTM Global Trends Report highlighting long-haul travel, such as Guyana’s interior eco-adventures, as one of the new buoyant sectors in the industry.Nearly 50,000 senior industry management officials attended the meeting. Some 5,500 exhibitors from more than 200 countries and regions put on a spectacular show of colourful and eye-catching stands.Haralsingh described Guyana’s efforts as “very, very successful,” noting that the BBC three-part series, “Lost Land of the Jaguar,” helped to generate interest. The series generated high television ratings in the UK. The series showed an international team of explorers, scientists and filmmakers discovering the plants and animals that inhabit the landscape of Guyana.The GTA Executive Director also pointed out that the GTA, along with its partners, had sponsored familiarization trips for British media, and their reports also helped to draw interest to Guyana’s booth.The Guyana contingent organised a special “Guyana Day,” in which visitors to the booth were able to sample Guyanese food and drinks.At a Ministers’ Summit attended by Minister Prashad,cheap nfl jerseys online, Francesco Frangialli, the retiring Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organisation, claimed that tourism will survive with the support of its own strength.“We do not need a stimulus package for the industry,” he added. “When the time comes, tourism will contribute to the revival of the economy as a whole.”For 2008, the outlook is not negative. International arrivals up to the end of August registered a steady increase of 3.8 per cent on an annual basis.Whatever happens, there will be positive growth in real terms. He pointed to the increased flows from emerging countries – for example, 40 million Chinese travelled to the rest of the world in 2007 — and he predicted more in 2008 and 2009.And he said: “The need to travel, to engage in leisure, to go on holidays is now so deeply ingrained in the minds of people that consumers do whatever they can to continue to do so.” |
