One of the Caribbean’s most remote tourism destinations is having a banner year.

Guyana, which has carved out a niche as an eco-tourism destination, has seen an 11.6 percent increase in tourist arrivals in the first nine months of this year, according to Guyana Tourism Authority Indranauth Haralsingh.

The director said that was buoyed by a record 102 percent increase in visitors in May for Guyana’s Golden Jubilee celebration.

“Our goal is to continue to increase visitor arrivals in Guyana, to increase their length of stay and to get them to spend more,” Haralsingh said

Tourism is estimated to be around 8 percent of Guyana’s Gross Domestic Product.

Last year, 206,800 people visited Guyana.

“Tourism encourages and generates expenditure. Each time a visitor comes to Guyana they spend money in our economy, and so our tourism industry basically generates billions of [Guyanese] dollars in visitor spending each year,” he noted.