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Jun 12, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
President Granger has made the right decision in placing the tourism portfolio under the Ministry of Business. There is absolutely no need for a standalone Ministry of Tourism.
The experience of the previous government seems to have guided the present administration in terms of its handling of the tourism portfolio. The previous administration did not have a standalone Ministry of Tourism. The tourism portfolio under the PPPC was part of a ministry that dealt with commerce and industry, which has now been rebranded as business.
The experience of the PPP in tourism is evidence that there is little that the government can do, apart from developing infrastructure, which will boost the tourism sector. The PPP spent a great deal of money on tourism, but yet the sector still makes only a marginal contribution to Guyana’s economic growth.
The PPP built a major hotel which the new government promised to sell. But one year has passed and the hotel has not yet been sold. It is a government-owned hotel and a number of questions are still swirling about that hotel.
The hotel is government-owned and the experience with government-owned businesses in the recent and distant past has not been a good one. The longer the government holds on to the hotel, the greater will be the possibility of the same type of abuses which occurred in the past manifesting themselves.
The hotel was sold out during the recent jubilee celebrations. So, its finances should be in better shape. But the longer the government holds on to ownership, the more likely is there to be the possibility that state officials may want to abuse the services of that hotel. In fact, the hotel should indicate whether it provided any free services recently to government officials or to their friends.
The longer the government holds on to ownership, the greater the chance of friends of the government abusing the services of the hotel. This is a third world phenomenon.
The hotel is part of the tourism infrastructure of the country but all over the world, such infrastructure is owned by the private sector. The industry is a private sector-led industry and therefore should be run as a business.
This is the right pace for the tourism portfolio to be accommodated. The tourism sector is a private sector industry. Government investment in tourism has to therefore compete with other needs for the business community. The government is not going to invest in tourism businesses. It may invest in developing communication but the establishment of other infrastructure such as hotels and resorts has to come from the private sector.
As a private sector industry, tourism should fall under the Ministry of Business, also because Guyana needs private sector investment and the institutions to attract investment into the tourism sector lie within the Ministry of Business.
Guyana does not have white sand beaches and ‘blue water’. Guyana has a very expensive tourism product. Guyana’s biggest market is returning Guyanese. No tourism sector can rely on such a market, especially since Guyana’s population is so small. A small population will eventually limit the growth of family-based tourism.
The PPP recognized this and took the controversial decision to build a hotel. This was a highly risky investment. The new government, by holding on to the hotel built by the PPP, is actually making the PPP look good.
The hospitality association wants a standalone minister. This is reflective of the thinking within the sector. The sector is looking for government to babysit it. The government has, however, been babysitting the tourism sector for over twenty years, and it has gone nowhere.
What the tourism sector needs is what the PPP recognized too late, that instead of pampering the sector, it should simply bring in two or three large operators to invest in facilities. The tourism sector needs business investment, not government control. And this is why the President did the right thing by placing the tourism portfolio under the Ministry of Business.
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So the President gets applauded for something pedestrian like shifting tourism to another minister. How does this change the dynamics of tourism? Will there now be a surge in foreigners or overseas Guyanese to Guyana?
I recall the President being applauded for the highly publicized revocation of Brian Tiwari’s Business Advisor appointment , but two months after the Harmon-Tiwari trip to China to find out about the US$5m in GT&T shares, neither Granger nor Harmon has seen it fit to come clean with the public on the true status of the money.
Enough with the symbolic gestures! I am yet to see a blueprint of the coalition’s plans for substantive stuff. It seems to be running on left over ideas from the PPP.