The Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, Industry, and Commerce will be launching an app which will be able to keep track of visitors in the country, mainly to ensure their safety.
This was disclosed on Monday by the Head of the GTA Kamrul Baksh during the launching of Tourism Awareness Month.
According to him, the launch of the app is one of the innovative strategies developed by the GTA and the Ministry to promote Guyana’s tourism sector.
“Firstly, the app was designed to actually share a lot of the protocols, that is, the health protocols that are established within our country so, that travellers at any point in time will able to reference this, using this application,” Baksh explained.
“A part from that, it will share general information about the destination, things you need, essentials for travel really,” he added.
The GTA Head further noted that the app will have a tracking ability which can determine a visitor’s location, especially when they are travelling to remote areas. This, he noted, is in order to ensure their safety.
“The key differentiator for this app is the fact that it has a tracking apparatus, so, because of the type of tourism product we have, travellers move from one location to another, especially in remote locations where you don’t have telecommunication signals, so, this application will actual ping to the operator in Georgetown, the location of this person, so that they would know that they have arrived safely at their destination,” Baksh explained.
“So, if there is an event of an emergency, there’s a response mechanism that will kick in. So, in short, the application is really for the provision of information, so there will be a repository and it will be updated on an ongoing basis. Also, it will be able to track visitors or travellers to ensure that they have a safe experience throughout this country,” the GTA Head noted.
The app is scheduled to be launched on November 24, according to the Tourism Awareness Month’s calendar of events.
