GTA appeal to Guyanese to provide Bed and Breakfast Services

Guyanese are being urged to take advantage of opportunities to provide Bed and Breakfast (B&B) services through the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA), as the Caribbean Premier League 2022 and Guyana’s first ever cricket carnival draw closer.

GTA’s Director, Kamrul Baksh in an interview with the local media recently said that the programme will provide alternative accommodation for the upcoming season.

“This new product which is cricket and carnival being blended together for the September-October period, we recognised that a lot of the hotels in the country are fully booked…now how do we solve this problem, so the charge was that we needed to get some additional rooms so we thought of coming up with this bed and breakfast initiative,” Baksh said.

Baksh explained that so far more than 102 persons have registered with the GTA, equating to some 390 rooms, most of which have been inspected, and given the green light to begin hosting visitors.

It was disclosed that the GTA has been providing hospitality, CPR, and other relevant training that may be helpful to bed and breakfast providers.

Further, the GTA director said a team from the agency will take interested individuals through the entire process, sharing information and getting persons registered.

“We have an inspectorate that would come out and see whether you actually satisfy the requirements of a bed and breakfast property, and once that inspection is completed, of course there may be cases of non-conformity, you may need to fix something or create a policy, or put in some signage or something like that, we assist in that regard, and once things are fixed, we would come back, do a reinspection and then issue you with a letter of conditional approval,” he stressed.

Baksh pointed out that marketing is also a priority for the GTA and registered, approved providers are published on the Stabroek Travel, cricketcarnival592.com, GTA’s Facebook page, and other platforms.

“We will promote these conditionally approved businesses so that you would get the marketing push because what we want to do is to drive traffic to businesses that are conditionally approved,” Baksh stressed.

The GTA Director disclosed that the number of conditionally approved properties are also on the Airbnb platform. “So, this initiative is for cricket carnival, but I’m sure it will extend beyond cricket carnival,” he said.

Further, providing bed and breakfast services offers an additional stream of revenue and more persons are encouraged to get on board providing this service as there is support.

Additionally, events surrounding Cricket Carnival 2022, begin on September 16 and conclude on October 2.