Committed to developing community-led and owned tourism, the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) has been providing the relevant training programmes and assistance to prepare villages like Moraikobai and Karasabai to independently host travellers.
Training sessions geared towards enabling just this were recently conducted by GTA and were successfully conducted in the areas of Delivering Quality Service, First Aid, and CPR to 25 residents of Moraikobai, Region 5 on May 2-5, 2019, and to 23 residents of Karasabai, Region 8 on May 13 – 15, 2019.
Deborah Clementson, GTA’s Training Officer, conducted three days of training in Delivering Quality Service to 13 participants in Moraikobai, while Davina Layne, GTA’s Manager of Training, Licensing and Operations, conducted three days of training in Delivering Quality Service to 11 persons in Karasabai. This training programme, designed by the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), is geared towards educating participants on the importance of tourism in Guyana and the neighbouring regions, understanding and respecting cultural differences, and the 10 principles and the importance of delivering quality service to travellers.
The First Aid and CPR Training resulted in 12 persons from Moraikobai trained in basic first aid, including the A-Z of first aid treatment and emergency procedures such as CPR. An additional 12 persons from Karasabai were trained in basic first aid. The participants were further given instruction in disaster preparedness.
The two-day sessions in both communities were conducted by Ms. Deon Worrell of St. John Association of Guyana who made use of practical, hands-on scenarios involving coaching participants to maximise their individual skills and to teach them how to work as a team. Through this, participants will be able to implement a coordinated response in emergency scenarios which will ultimately build confidence to respond to incidents where time is of the essence thereby significantly reducing the potential for fatalities.
The GTA is committed to providing guidance to the Moraikobai Tourism Committee to help them create a successful tourism enterprise through the creation of day tour and overnight packages and marketing their tourism product. In February, Kamrul Baksh, GTA’s Senior Product Development and Certification Officer, and a representative of Rainforest Tours visited Moraikobai to conduct Tour Guiding Training with tourism stakeholders. GTA also conducted a participatory consultation with various tourism stakeholders and completed the Tourism Baseline Assessment to draft the Moraikobai Tourism Action Plan.
Most notably, with assistance from the Projects Department within the Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs (MOIPA), Moraikobai has already embarked on the construction of a lodge. Once completed, nature enthusiasts, birders and those interested in sports fishing will be welcomed to enjoy the beauty of Moraikobai. Although a project deadline has not been finalised, the Moraikobai Tourism Committee is confident that the lodge will be completed by the end of the year.
GTA also has a sport fishing training guide scheduled for May 27-30 in the village of Warapoka in Region One. Warapoka is also one of the four highlighted communities for community-led and owned tourism development in the 2019-2025 through the partnership between the GTA and MOIPA.
For more information or assistance GTA persons can visit www.guyanatourism.com, contact Nicola Balram at [email protected], or call (592) 219-0093 or (592) 624-0410.
