Friday's Interview Notes

It was a busy day with interviews both at the CI office as well as with travel to three different locations. John went to the Ministry of Transportation, Communication, and Tourism (TCT) as well as a company called IntEnt while Debbie went to Orange travel (part of Vestor). Hiro had many interviews at CI and walked around a bit until it started dumping rain.

The time at the TCT ministry was interesting. I met the minister who is the head of the ministry (similar to a cabinet head in the US government) and listened to a presentation from a travel consultant from Trinidad and Tobago talk about a plan he is proposing to increase tourism to Suriname. It is very similar to our work except that he has done a high-level assessment (not a value chain analysis) and his proposal is implementation-oriented. That being said, I can see that whatever we propose will need to be very detailed with steps to take for implemening; many policies and studies have already been done around tourism but none of them have gone very far because people didn't know how to move them forward. In addition, the consultant will be a very good contact to have as we can help each other with the work.

In the afternoon I interviewed a contact at IntEnt. It is a company from Holland that has an office in Suriname to help people start their own businesses. One of the goals of the office in Paramaribo is to bring back educated Surinamese who now live in Holland (known as diaspora) to have them use their education and skillset to help the economy develop.

From the meetings today as well as yesterday, here is a list of potential issues that we will need to address or at least explore in terms of our recommendation:

• Awareness of the country externally needs to be developed. There are many good pieces of Suriname that are marketable, but people are not aware of either the country or what it offers. There is also a negative perception for some regarding the political turmoil of the past. However, the solution can't be to throw more money at it as budgets are tight. Creative options can include getting the country's embassies involved in their local countries for awareness as well as inviting international television programs for specific events. An example used at the TCT meeting was the Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods episode about Trinidad and Tobago. The filming was free, but the episode has been played over 100 times in countries all over the world. This also requires Suriname to develop a brand internally and determine what it wants to market itself as (possibly even different elements for different markets). A key selling point for the country is the easy access to the Amazonian rainforest, but other selling points are cultural immersion in people who haven't changed their ways for 200 years, and experiencing 'the world in one country' as the diversity of people is very high and distinct.
• The pricing of tourism products here is high. For what the country has for amenities and the standard of living, the cost is pretty high. We are staying in a decent hotel, but we also pay $75 per night. Beer costs $3, so similar to prices in the US and dissimilar to prices in countries like Thailand. Food is also very similar; lunches run around $5+ and dinners run around $10-15. While that may seem cheap from a US perspective, it isn't that cheap for a developing country.
• The government is very uncoordinated and politics impact quite a bit of the country. There are far too many ministries and many of them have some part in tourism. If the large number of different parties is going to be involved, someone needs to take ownership and drive tourism within the government (or STS). The issue is that nobody is managing and helping coordinate all the activities, and it is apparent that many different people are doing various activities to develop tourism (and there is quite a bit of overlap). In addition, politics are a very tough issue to crack as minority groups in the interior (Maroon and Amerindian tribes) have far more voting power and parliament seats than other people. As a result, they are able to dictate and manage their territory as they wish. As an example, tourism management could dictate that boat captains be licensed and all boats carry life vests (to prevent fairly regular drowning as people go upriver in rapids on motorized canoes), but that would require the tribes to invest money and time in equipment and training that they likely would be resistant to, and they would simply veto the law. If we propose a solution here, it would need to involve self-funding (i.e. incremental tourism revenue would be used to provide for the additional costs.
• Education is an issue for Surinamese citizens in general as well as those involved in tourism. For the population in general, many don't really care one way or the other about tourists. As a result, they can come off cold and unhappy that tourists are here, and they also aren't as willing to keep the physical environment clean and put together. There is trash around and buildings in disrepair, and fixing them would give the country a dramatic uplift in the tourist experience. For the people involved in tourism, many want to do well and make the experience as good as possible, but they simply don't know what the normal customs are in other parts of the world. As an example, tribes that have been excited to share their food with tourists who come to the villages have spent time learning about sanitation and making sure that people wash their hands and tie back their hair during food preparation, but they will let raw meat sit on the ground next to the fire before being cooked, adding a nice seasoning of dirt and sand. One comment here is that the training can't make these people spend time and money traveling somewhere to learn; the training will need to come to them. This came up during the presentation with TCT and the solution is to train people in the villages that can then train themselves (i.e. train the trainer). This also allows for each tourist destination to retain it's distinct flavor so that tourists would want to visit more than one (i.e. they aren't all the same).
• Simplifying the visa process is something that will help increase tourism fairly easily. As Suriname is a small country, they can't have a consulate presence very broadly. As a result, people from countries that don't have a consulate but require a visa have a hard time getting motivated to go to another country to simply get a visa to then go to Suriname. However, the government is already looking at addressing this with "tourism cards" where you simply purchase your visa upon entering the country.
• Increasing accessibility to the country through more flights and routes. This could either be done directly through the existing airlines, but it might be even easier for them to work on building additional partnerships. Caribbean Air is partnered with Continental and as a result, people can check their bags straight through to the final destination; preventing the issue that we had in Miami that required us to get our luggage, go back to the check-in counters, and then go back through security.
• Increase the number of events throughout the year to smooth out tourism spikes. Currently July and December are packed and not much happens in the months between. There seem to be capacity issues, but not with the tourism-related services like hotels/busses/taxi/etc. It is more about simply getting around. The traffic system and roads become congested very easily, and adding a bunch of tourists into the mix only adds to the mess. One of the issues with tourism companies (especially small entrepreneurial ones) is that they do really well during the high seasons (very profitable) and then they struggle through the low seasons (usually requiring a second job to get by during the slow months). By increasing events in off-peak times, it will help alleviate some of the cost pressure and provide a more consistent income. There is already a pilot program to launch a heritage event in February next year since that is still decent weather and the country is relatively quiet.

Tomorrow the three of us head out on an excursion and we know it will involve a boat and hiking, so we will see what happens. We need to be ready by 545AM though...sleep has definitely been light while we have been here, but it's only for a limited time.

John Kinney