Guyana's Tourism Month Runs 31 Events in Five Regions. The Other Five Carry None.

By LCN Business Desk

A theme is a slogan until somebody publishes the dates. The Guyana Tourism Authority has published the dates.

Thirty-one items, a hotel launch, two overseas fairs, four radio Saturdays, two clean-ups and a safari, running from the evening of 31 October to an awards night in Lethem on 12 December.

What is on the calendar?

A dated programme of 31 items, most of them in November, and this is the whole of it as published.

*Guyana Tourism Authority, Tourism Awareness Month 2026 calendar, published 1 November 2026. Venues and dates as printed. The counts and groupings below are LCN's.*

The banner reads November 1 to 30. Two of the items fall in December.

Where does the programme actually happen?

In five of Guyana's ten administrative regions, and nowhere near evenly.

Regions Two, Four, Seven, Nine and Ten carry every item that names a place inside Guyana. Regions One, Three, Five, Six and Eight carry nothing.

A business in New Amsterdam or Corriverton, in Parika or Vreed-en-Hoop, in Mabaruma or Mahdia has no dated item to attend in its own region. The programme reaches the hinterland and not all of it: Bartica, Lethem and the South Rupununi are on the calendar, Mabaruma in Region One and Mahdia in Region Eight are not.

Among the regions that do appear, Linden and Region Ten take six items, more than any single venue in Georgetown. Region Two takes four across three separate locations. Region Nine takes the Rupununi Expo, the safari and the closing awards night.

Fourteen items name a venue outside Georgetown. Nine name Georgetown or Region Four. Five are online or national, two are overseas, and one radio slot runs in both Georgetown and Linden.

LCN reported last month that Susan Rodrigues, Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, speaking at a Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association panel, asked why nobody is investing in Lethem and said oil and gas would not get Guyana there alone. The programme her ministry now runs closes in Lethem.

Which items can a business actually sell into?

The exhibitions, the launches and the month-long discount scheme. The training and the clean-ups are capacity, not revenue.

Six items are launches of something new: GuyWay on 6 November, a tourism product on 18 November, Rif's Hotel at Anna Regina on 20 November, WildKai at Bartica on 25 November, and the Christmas Village on Main Street on 4 December. For a supplier, a launch is a procurement event before it is a ribbon.

Three are exhibitions where a stand can be taken: the Tourism Village inside GuyExpo from 12 to 15 November, the Rupununi Expo at Lethem on 28 and 29 November, and the Snap and Share awards at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. GuyExpo is already in the trade diary. LCN reported at that exhibition's launch that Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association president Rafeek Khan named hospitality among the sectors he wants to see grow, alongside garments, agro-processing and information technology.

Three are training: business proposal writing in Region Two on 11 November, the Taxi Driver Ambassador Training Programme on 23 November, and school outreach across Region Ten for two weeks. None of those puts a visitor on an aircraft, and all three are free to the participant on the face of the calendar.

TOURVEMBER is the only item that runs the full month and is aimed squarely at a booking. It is described as discounted curated tour packages across Destination Guyana, and no discount, no operator list and no package price is published with it.

What does the calendar not say?

Prices, targets, capacity, and who pays.

No item on the published calendar carries a fee, a stand cost, an attendance target or a participation deadline. A business that wants a stand at the Tourism Village, a slot at the Rupununi Expo or a package inside TOURVEMBER has a date and a place and nothing else to plan against. The contact route is not printed on the calendar either.

Nor does it say what any of it is meant to deliver. Guyana is working towards more than 500,000 arrivals by the end of the year, and needs 139,377 of them in the fourth quarter. The programme and the target were announced by the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce in the same week. Neither document refers to the other.

What should an operator take from it?

Three dates, and the knowledge that the hinterland items are the ones with room.

The Georgetown items are the crowded ones and the ones that will be covered. The Region Two, Seven, Nine and Ten items are where a small operator is one of few, and where the published cost of doing business is highest: LCN has reported that a business in Region Nine buys diesel at up to three times the Georgetown price, and that the ferry serving Bartica is 67 years old and was left out of the state repair programme. WildKai launches at Bartica on 25 November regardless.

The three dates worth putting in a diary now are 12 to 15 November at Sophia, 28 and 29 November at Lethem, and 30 November at Four Points, where the Small Business Bureau holds its awards and the Diaspora Symposium runs the same day.

A calendar is the cheapest thing a ministry publishes and the most useful. This one names where the state will be standing for six weeks. A business that wants to be seen by the state, or by the visitors the state is courting, now knows exactly where to stand and when.

The entities

• Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) is Guyana's state tourism body and the publisher of the calendar.
• Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce is the parent ministry, whose minister is Susan Rodrigues.
• Tourism Awareness Month is the Ministry's annual November programme, run in 2026 under the theme "Tourism Is Everybody's Business".
• TOURVEMBER is the month-long discounted tour package scheme on the calendar.
• World Travel Market is the London travel trade fair, held at Excel from 3 to 5 November 2026.
• GuyExpo is Guyana's national trade exhibition, which hosts the Tourism Village from 12 to 15 November at the National Exhibition Centre, Sophia.
• Rupununi Expo is the Lethem exhibition on the calendar for 28 and 29 November.
• Small Business Bureau is the Guyanese small business agency, whose awards ceremony falls on 30 November.

What the title card says

• Headline: Guyana's Tourism Month runs 31 events in five regions, and the other five carry none.
• Items on the published calendar: 31, running 31 October to 12 December 2026. Source: Guyana Tourism Authority.
• Regions of Guyana with at least one dated item: five, being Two, Four, Seven, Nine and Ten. LCN count from the calendar.
• Regions with no dated item: five, being One, Three, Five, Six and Eight. LCN count.
• Items naming a venue outside Georgetown: 14. Items naming Georgetown or Region Four: nine. LCN count.
• Items outside Guyana: two, being World Travel Market in London on 3 to 5 November and the Global Tourism Forum in Brussels on 9 November.
• Launches of something new on the calendar: six, including Rif's Hotel at Anna Regina on 20 November and WildKai at Bartica on 25 November.
• Fees, stand costs, attendance targets or deadlines printed on the calendar: none.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is Tourism Awareness Month 2026 in Guyana?

The banner on the Guyana Tourism Authority's calendar reads November 1 to 30, 2026. The programme opened with a launch at the Aiden Hotel in Georgetown on 31 October and closes with the Tourism Awards and Hall of Fame at Lethem on 12 December, so two items fall outside the month it is named for.

Which regions have Tourism Awareness Month events?

Regions Two, Four, Seven, Nine and Ten. Regions One, Three, Five, Six and Eight carry no dated item on the published calendar.

What is TOURVEMBER?

It is listed on the calendar as discounted curated tour packages across Destination Guyana, running the full month of November. No discount rate, operator list or package price is published alongside it.

Where can a business exhibit during the programme?

Three items on the calendar are exhibitions: the Tourism Village at GuyExpo from 12 to 15 November at the National Exhibition Centre at Sophia, the Rupununi Expo at Lethem on 28 and 29 November, and the Snap and Share Video Edition Awards Ceremony at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on 26 November. No stand costs or application deadlines appear on the calendar.