Efforts are being made to promote the Canje River located in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), as a tourist destination.
The Region Six Tourism Committee is leading the awareness drive.
Although the Committee is relatively new, it is hoping to make Region Six one of the “must-visit places in Guyana”.
As part of National Tourism Awareness Month of activities, the regional committee has chosen two activities in an effort to promote the East Berbice region under the theme, “Rediscover the Ancient County”.
One will be a photography competition in two categories – professionals and secondary school students.
The other will be a familiarisation tour up the Canje River for tour operators, organisers and travel providers with the view of boosting travel and tourism actives in the region.
While some refer to it as the Canje Creek, it should be noted that rivers flow in channels and have branches or tributaries while creeks do not.
The Canje River is home to the Lukanani and also the Canje Pheasant – Guyana’s national bird.
Co-chair of the Committee, Travis Issacs, while addressing the media on Friday at the launch of Tourism Awareness Month explained that the trip to the Canje River will be for persons to familiarise themselves with the area with the view of boosting travel and tourism activities in the region.
Meanwhile, secondary school students who would like to participate in photography competition would have to visit the Regional Tourism Committee’s East Berbice-Corentyne Facebook page and share and like the page to be a part of the competition.
The aim is to bring attention to the natural attractions in the East Berbice-Corentyne region and to heighten awareness within and outside of the region of the possibilities that lie in the region. It also seeks to generate a bank of compelling tourism images which are available for use for tourism material as part of the décor in public spaces.
“This particular project was selected so that we can link tourism with education, so we are having the school children involved. The other idea of having the professional photographs involved is so that when they would have given us their photographs of natural scenery, we hope to propel that so that if you go into a restaurant or a hotel in Region Six, you wouldn’t see a picture of maybe Miami Beach or so, you would see natural scenery not just from Guyana but from right here in the Ancient County,” Issacs said.
Co-chair Keisha Hamid explained that all winners will receive cash trophies and tokens.
“One of the forms that the tokens will be, is the branding of roughly 20 students as tourism ambassadors. So, they will go back to their schools and educate their fellow students about tourism within Region Six.”
Entrance to the competitions is free and it is open to all secondary schools in the region and all professionals.
