Guyana, Caribbean Airlines to work on boosting country's eco-tourism
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| Published on Wednesday, May 23, 2007 |
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GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA): Guyana is fast emerging as a ‘must travel to’ destination as it offers an eco-tourism experience unlike any other country. Government is stepping up its marketing strategies to place Guyana on the map and to increase tourist influx.
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Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo meets with Caribbean Airlines’ Chief Executive Officer Peter Davies. GINA Photo
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Head of State President Bharrat Jagdeo on Monday met Caribbean Airlines’ Chief Executive Officer Peter Davies to discuss how Government and the Regional carrier could team up to boost Guyana’s tourist arrival statistics.
Davies said during the meeting the President was told of several initiatives Caribbean Airlines would be interested in pursuing.
“Guyana is a very important part of our network… We have a lot of plans, aspirations and ambitions. We wanted to bring him up-to-date on how we will develop those. It is important to get his views on how Caribbean Airlines can help the country in eco-tourism,” Davies said.
He noted that with Caribbean Airlines’ relationship with other travel suppliers like British Airways and other North American carriers, marketing Guyana as a tourist destination worldwide would be achievable.
Davies said, “I think you have a fabulous opportunity. Not everyone in the world knows about it (Guyana) so part of the airline’s responsibility is obviously to help develop that. It is a win-win situation because the country benefits from people coming in and obviously we are hoping to bring them in. These are the sort of initiatives we are looking at.”
Present marketing strategies coupled with affordable flying rates are a sure fire way to achieve the desired results.
He said, “I am on a little bit of a crusade to ensure we have a better opportunity for passengers and people who don’t fly but would love to fly. We are very conscious of that and to try and make our rates as competitive as possible. Part of the responsibility of any airline in any part of the world is to try to facilitate travel and make as cost advantage for the passenger as possible we need to stimulate and create demand.”
Also present for the meeting were Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Manniram Prashad and Minister of Transport and Hydraulics Robeson Benn. Davies said Caribbean Airlines will be working closely with the two Ministries.
He said new routes for the Regional carrier is a priority. “One of the things we would like is to operate direct flights from this country to North America rather than inconvenience passenger having to fly through Trinidad and Tobago.”
The airline’s CEO expressed optimism over the carrier’s future.
“Now that Caribbean Airlines is financially firm and more secure than the previous regime, the operational performance is a lot better. Clearly, we are in a much better position as an airline and to be more confident about the future.”
Jagdeo was given a progress report on Caribbean Airlines which took to the skies on January 1, 2007 replacing British West Indian Airways (BWIA) which served the aviation sector for more than 66 years.
Davies expanded, “We wanted to bring him up-to-date with the success of Caribbean Airlines. We began since January and certainly our on-time performance has been excellent, about 90 percent, one of the highest in the whole industry.”
Based on customers’ past experience with the then BWIA, Caribbean Airlines has placed significant emphasis on customer services, on-time arrivals and departures and 100 percent baggage delivery every time.
“We now do regular customer service surveys on and off the aircraft once a week,” Davies revealed. | | | | Reads : 184 | | | |
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