Editorial Free

This theme issue is dedicated to the development of sustainable tourism in Guyana which is located on South America’s North Atlantic coast and known for its spectacular natural resources, including rain forests. As an English-speaking nation, Guyana has close connections with the Caribbean region and its well-established tourism industry. I would like to thank the writing team and theme editors, Donald Sinclair, Director General of Tourism, Guyana and Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena, who for number of years played a leading role in Guyana’s hotel industry, for their thought-provoking collection of articles that explore the challenges and opportunities facing Guyana’s tourism industry.

Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes (WHATT) aims to make a practical and theoretical contribution to hospitality and tourism development, and we seek to do this by using a key question to focus attention on an industry issue. If you would like to contribute to our work by serving as a WHATT theme editor, do please contact me.

The year 2025 is of significance for Guyana that is in the process of re-defining itself as a tourism destination. For many years its place in the family of Caribbean tourism destinations, the latter famous for their blue waters and white sandy beaches, made necessary a projection of a tourism identity that was based upon nature, upon the rainforest and biodiversity and upon indigenous cultural traditions that were in existence for centuries. Guyana, the Caribbean destination, seemed to have more in common with its neighbours to the south, with those eight countries that shared the geo-space known as the Amazon. This apparent dual tourism identity serves to enrich both the Caribbean tourism identity, in so far as Guyana can be presented as part of the “alternative Caribbean”, and the tourism persona of the Amazon countries where Guyana can be seen to offer “Caribbean” content to a geo-destination often typecast as unremitting jungle space.

This circumstance aside, there is a contemporary factor that is driving the debate on the Guyana tourism identity and renewing calls for the elaboration of appropriate strategies for the development of a tourism sector. That factor is oil – the recent Exxon discovery of oil in apparently prodigious quantities off the north-eastern shores of Guyana. Once the commercial viability of that resource had been established, it became clear that Guyana would soon (2020 is the proposed year) be in receipt of royalties and profits from oil that would triple its current revenue base, making available unprecedented sums that could fuel development, including tourism.

This theme issue therefore seeks to examine tourism prospects, options and challenges as Guyana prepares for a future that, to a significant degree, will be financed by extraction of a non-renewable resource, even as it pursues a development path that is defined as the transition to a Green State. The theme issue recognizes appropriate policy formulation and definition of strategy as critical elements. It explores the place of community-based tourism, human resource training and entrepreneurship in this tourism development matrix and examines the role of the diaspora as a force in the tourism development of Guyana. It also ventures into the dark alley of “thanatourism” and proposes Jonestown tourism initiative as a potential attraction to boost dark tourism traffic to Guyana.