Guest Bio
Tony Thorne is the Managing Director of Wilderness Explorers, a pioneering adventure travel company based in Guyana. His relationship with the country began in 1988 when he first arrived as a project leader with Operation Raleigh — an experience that sparked his deep connection to Guyana’s rugged beauty and untamed landscapes. After returning in the early ’90s, Tony accepted a role managing Timberhead Rainforest Resort and soon after launched Wilderness Explorers in 1994, when tourism in the region was still in its infancy.
A true advocate for sustainable travel, Tony was also the founding President of the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana and has long been a key figure in shaping the country’s tourism industry. With decades of experience exploring remote areas and working alongside local communities, he remains committed to building tourism that benefits the people and preserves the pristine environment — including the awe-inspiring Kaieteur Falls, which continues to captivate him to this day.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Tony about his remarkable journey from military service to managing one of the most influential travel companies in Guyana. Tony shares how his early adventures led him to the heart of South America, where he found not only a new home but a calling to help build a tourism industry from the ground up.
The conversation dives into the evolution of tourism in Guyana, the critical role of indigenous communities in sustainable travel, and how the country is balancing economic growth — fueled by recent oil discoveries — with the need to protect its rainforest ecosystems. Tony also reflects on the challenges and triumphs of operating in a developing travel market, and the long-term value of staying curious, adaptable, and community-minded.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Tony’s pursuit of adventure began with military service and led him to Guyana.
- ✓ Wilderness Explorers crafts seamless travel experiences across Guyana’s diverse landscapes.
- ✓ The tourism sector in Guyana has evolved significantly since the 1990s.
- ✓ Indigenous communities are central to the country’s sustainable tourism efforts.
- ✓ Tony played a leadership role in founding the national tourism association.
- ✓ Visitors are often surprised by Guyana’s rich cultural diversity.
- ✓ The country is undergoing rapid transformation due to oil-driven economic growth.
- ✓ Sustainable tourism serves as a tool for rainforest conservation and community development.
- ✓ Guyana offers adventurous travelers opportunities for wildlife encounters and off-grid exploration.
- ✓ Tony’s story highlights the importance of resilience and adaptability in building a meaningful business.
What You’ll Find on Wilderness Explorers
- Customized travel itineraries focused on nature, culture, and adventure
- Collaborations with indigenous communities to promote authentic experiences
- Expeditions to iconic destinations like Kaieteur Falls and the Rupununi region
- Guided wildlife tours featuring rare species and pristine ecosystems
- Commitment to sustainable and responsible tourism practices
- Decades of local expertise and on-the-ground logistical support
👉 Visit Wilderness Explorers Official Website to learn more about Tony and their work.
Learn more about Wilderness Explorers | Guyana and connect with Tony at:
https://wilderness-explorers.com
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason Elkins (00:00.994)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. We’ve got someone very adventurous today, super happy. My guest is Tony Thorne. He’s the managing director of Wilderness Explorers. Tony, welcome to the show. Happy to have you here.
Tony (00:17.764)
Yeah, hi Jason, thank you for having me.
Jason Elkins (00:20.374)
It’s real pleasure. And I was like to ask everybody where they’re at when we’re having the call. I’m here in Thailand. Where are you at at the moment?
Tony (00:29.114)
Currently in Wiltshire in the UK. So we live between the UK, Australia, where I’m from and my wife’s English and then our business in Guyana in South America. So we do travel a lot for our life.
Jason Elkins (00:43.81)
Part of why I like to ask where you’re at, because it sounds like it could be any number of places at this point. So, well, very, very cool. And it’s wonderful that we’re able to come together and have this conversation when we’re halfway around the world. I love the technology that allows us to do that.
Tony (00:48.984)
Yeah, indeed.
Jason Elkins (01:00.248)
Tony, we’re going to dig into your story. We’re going to really try and figure out how did you get from where you were to where you are now. But before we do that, let’s give everybody kind of the 30, 60 second elevator pitch on what is Wilderness Explorers? What should they know about that right off the bat before we dig in?
Tony (01:17.678)
Yeah, well, Wilderness Explorers, we’re a destination management company or tour operator. We’re based in Guyana in South America. We also operate in French Guyana and Surinam, but of the Caribbean as well. So basically we design, create and package trips for people, mainly sort of soft adventure. We also do some expedition type things. We do some production work for TV and film crew as well.
using those same skills to take them into remote areas. our clientele is global and they’re coming really to experience pristine, untouched rainforests in the wildlife. And also the indigenous culture is an important part of what they’re able to experience as well.
Jason Elkins (02:03.242)
Absolutely. And it’s an area that fascinates me. Haven’t really had anybody on the show to discuss that area. So this is a real treat for me. And one thing real quick, you mentioned DMC and then you mentioned tour operator. And just for those of our listeners that don’t really aren’t as familiar with the terminology, in your words, what’s a DMC?
Tony (02:25.026)
Right. So perhaps first explain about a tour operator is someone who designs an activity or maybe a day trip, a trek or a boat trip. We’re working with small tour operators in the regions we work and packaging various components of what they offer. So we might work with five or six different people and lodges and hotels. So we’re packaging all together, creating a seamless two week trip, for example, that might have
30 or 40 different suppliers where we’re taking their individual services and combining it together and then taking that to the marketplace. So the customer’s buying a trip without necessarily understanding that what we’re doing is just taking many elements, bring it together to create a seamless holiday for them.
Jason Elkins (03:11.758)
Cool. And typically when someone says DMC, it’s kind of an indication that it’s a destination management company, but that you’re working with other businesses. So it’s kind of like B2B. So maybe you put together this package and when you say we put it on the marketplace, is that for consumers to book it directly with you or is that you put it on the marketplace? So maybe a travel agent or a tour operator in the US might then…
you know, add a little bit to it, maybe rebrand it and put it out to directly to the consumer or what does that look like?
Tony (03:46.254)
Yeah, so about 70 % of our business is trade. So tour operators, a little bit of travel agents, but primarily tour operators globally. Then about 30 % of our business is direct business people. You some people are doing quite a bit of research and they managed to find their way to us, but primarily we’re trade facing. And so that’s a lot of our focus for our businesses is going out, working with the trade, finding out what they want and what they need for their marketplace.
Jason Elkins (04:15.598)
Okay, and I appreciate that. And part of why I like to have that conversation early on is for the listeners. We’ve got some listeners that are travel agents, tour operators, work in the business. We’ve got other listeners that are just really interested about what’s going on. So it’s great for them to kind of figure out is this a…
What level should I pay attention to this guy? I guess is where I’m going with this is if it’s somebody that’s thinking about booking a trip like that themselves, then, you know, we create this connection, this conversation, they can go to your website, that link’s going to be in the show notes and they can reach out to you directly. Or if they have a travel agent or if somebody listening is a travel agent or.
a buyer outbound tour operator in the US or somewhere else, then they can stay tuned in as well and click the same link probably and connect with you as well. Is that an accurate statement?
Tony (05:02.97)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we try to cover all bases. Our trade connection is very important. It’s the fundamental foundation of the business, but the direct clients, you people who are coming direct are normally well-experienced travelers and they like to do their own research and they tend not necessarily to travel through to operator. They want to, you know, do it themselves. They might.
ordinarily travel in a country without anyone like us even, but in the destinations we operate in, it can often be quite challenging and difficult to work it out yourself. And you’re going into remote areas where there’s not public transport. if you get into a remote area, for example, there could be a flight which connects to a four-wheel drive journey, which connects to a boat trip to get you to the lodge you’re going to in the middle of nowhere. So that can be quite…
daunting as a backpacker or someone wants to do independently, like how do you connect these things together in the middle of the rainforest? that’s, I guess, our skill set is that we know the people who spend a lot of time researching and putting that together to make it easy for people to travel.
Jason Elkins (06:13.07)
Sounds good. Makes a lot of sense. I presume that maybe some of your direct clients are more likely to say, hey, we’re going to be there for a few weeks. Here’s this one little part maybe or something. And can you help us with just that part where maybe when you’re working with the trade clients, it might be a little bit more complete package. it work out that way or not?
Tony (06:33.014)
Yeah, generally the trade want a one stop shop to do everything for them. Also, the difference is when they got clients in country, if anything happens, we’re on the ground to deal with it. you know, an internal flight gets cancelled. What’s someone in the UK or US how they going to fix it? We’re on the ground to get another another flight booked, you know, bring someone out by road and that type of thing. we have a role.
Jason Elkins (06:44.568)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (06:53.037)
Yeah.
Tony (07:00.482)
An individual client might come to us, they want a particular day trip to Kaitua Falls, which is the number one tourist destination. Because they want to do that, then we can have a conversation. Have you thought about doing these other things? So sometimes an inquiry from a direct client leaves into then being a week or two week trip because they didn’t realize that we offered all these various services. So it’s about educating people as well about what Guyana has and the other countries that we sell.
Jason Elkins (07:20.067)
Mm-hmm.
Tony (07:29.786)
and what we can offer them as well.
Jason Elkins (07:32.334)
Right, right, very cool. All right, well, I appreciate that. We’re going to come back to that, I’m sure. There’s no doubt in my mind. And I’d like to do it this way. I’d like to go back in time, as far back as you think we need to go, and maybe even a little further, depending on what comes out of this. But let’s help our listeners understand how the heck did you get into this. It’s kind like when you’re with clients and that
dinner and they start asking Tony man what were you doing before you did this how did you come you know come to this this place in your life so what do think how far back do we need to go to understand all that
Tony (08:05.69)
I guess probably I went to a high school and only went to year 10 and then I was booked to go on to another school to finish off my high school and during the holidays a few of my mates got jobs and I thought I don’t really like school I want to get a job so I decided to go and find a job and I became a plumber and gas fitter which really wasn’t me but you know I did it I finished my time as soon as I
I finished my apprenticeship at 20, I joined the army, I wanted adventure. So I grew up in a small rural city, about 60 or 70,000 people at that time. But I wanted some adventure. the army was sort of my route to get away. Spent three years as a regular soldier. Part of that I was posted overseas to Malaysia. And I guess that was my first time out of the country. And I got the travel boat from that and I organized a trip for…
a bunch of the guys I serving with when we had some leave up to Thailand and thought, I like this travel thing. So came back and took my discharge from the army so I could start traveling. I got convinced a mate to come. When we put on a backpack, we bought a one-way ticket from Melbourne to London. We arrived and didn’t know what we were going to do. Anyway, we found jobs. We started working, bought a combi band in Europe. Then I thought, I’m missing the military. So I decided I’d join the
territorial army or the reserve army in the UK. When I arrived, I was a bit confused. What do do with this guy? He’s not a British resident. In the end, while, said, OK, well, you’re a member of the Commonwealth. I guess we can enlist you as a member of the Commonwealth. So I joined the reserve army. I already had quite a bit of experience. So I was immediately sent to do promotional courses and things. But as part of that, there was a person in that unit who
recognized that I had already some skill sets that might be useful. And he worked for an organization called Operation Rally, and they did expeditions around the world, primarily for people 17 to 25, looking at sort of adventure, scientific work, basically taking young people and helping them build leadership skills or perhaps from underprivileged lifestyles to give them a chance to see how the world worked and,
Tony (10:30.264)
rubbing shoulders with other people and learning from them. So I applied for this and I went to the interview. You had to fill out a form and rate yourself for many things, which I found quite difficult. how languages rate yourself from one to 10 on languages. I thought, well, I don’t know any languages apart from English. And I thought I’ll be smart here. So I rated myself nine out of 10 on English, but 10 out of 10 for Australian. Anyway, in the interview, I think
Jason Elkins (10:58.238)
Yeah.
Tony (11:00.218)
They thought this was quite funny, I think. Anyway, I was before a panel of three people. So I’m applying for a job as a project leader or staff on this expedition. so they’re like conferring with themselves going, I think, you know, having done jungle training and things through the military, he’d be he’d be suitable for Guyana. Well, I didn’t want to admit I had no idea where Guyana was. Anyway, I accepted the position, got home that night. So this is pre internet, of course, had to find an atlas, which when you’re backpacking is not easy.
Jason Elkins (11:29.486)
you
Tony (11:30.286)
to look up and see where I just agreed to go to. But I thought if I don’t know where it is, that’s exotic enough for me. So I went out. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Elkins (11:37.932)
makes it all the more all the more interesting right yeah absolutely hey Tony I have I have a few questions for going any further and I want to make sure I don’t forget because I’m not very good at taking notes when I’m having a conversation but one of the things you mentioned was you didn’t use the term dropout of high school but I’m gonna just summarize it as I decided to drop out of high school I went got a job is that an accurate way okay wait is it
Tony (12:02.094)
Well, yeah, because I was changing schools and that seemed daunting alone. seemed like, you my mates are going to get jobs. I’m not going to finish high school. And that’s probably one of the few things in life I think I should have stayed on. But at 16, you think, life’s passing me fast. I better get out there and get things done.
Jason Elkins (12:08.456)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (12:21.582)
I remember those days and I made some similar choices. also went and joined the army because I wanted the adventure and to go see places. I didn’t actually ever get an overseas posting, so I got to see a lot of Kentucky, Tennessee. I did have some time in Alaska, which is great. But anyway, what I was curious about though is before you made that decision, do you remember any moment ever thinking about?
Travel and going overseas was that even on your radar?
Tony (12:54.682)
It seemed very unachievable. We’re talking about the early 80s. I started working in 79 and early 80s. None of my peers were taking holidays overseas. It was pretty unaffordable. Airfares back then were quite expensive. And if you did go, you went sort of in long periods, which is in the end when I did do it.
think I was 24 or 25 by the time I traveled and went to the UK. The idea was you go for a long time because you couldn’t fly backwards and forwards. It was far too expensive. now flights, okay, after COVID, they’re expensive again. But prior to COVID, flying around the world wasn’t such an expensive thing as it used to be. So traveling, I guess I wanted to travel and mainly within Australia and that was affordable. I had a car, I could drive myself wherever I wanted to go. So I enjoyed travel.
adventure but the idea of going overseas seemed quite remote because the cost and no one else in my peer group was doing that.
Jason Elkins (14:03.086)
Australia just presents some challenges and I’ve heard that from a few folks that I’ve had conversations with that it is much more about, if I’m gonna travel, it’s a lot, I’m gonna take six months and I’m gonna go to the UK or I’m gonna get closer, I’m gonna leave Australia and go somewhere probably further away. Or as opposed to if you grew up in the UK, then.
You know, you’re maybe taking holidays in Spain or you can get on a train and go somewhere and it’s, yeah, it’s a little different. Did, so you mentioned though you had a car and you went out and had some adventures. What kind of stuff, what kind of stuff were you doing that you think maybe led to joining the army and doing this whole thing? you like into hunting, fishing? What were you up to?
Tony (14:53.466)
Yeah, well, I mean, once I got my license, you know, we were down the beach every weekend. could surf in doing things like that. Then I went on a holiday to Queensland and met up with a friend there who had a motorbike and he put us on the back of his motorbike. So as soon as I got home, I bought a motorbike. So then we’re doing a lot of motorbike journeys as well. So it’s just, you know, I guess I enjoyed things that had a, I guess a level of risk.
I guess I’ve always been a bit like that. I like fast cars and fast bikes. So I enjoyed that. Working and having enough money to buy a second hand motorbike and go for the weekend and sleep in the back of your car and surf. So those were the sort of things that we doing. I really joined the Army. Originally, before I went to the regular Army, I joined the Reserve Army.
Jason Elkins (15:25.976)
Mm-hmm.
Tony (15:48.463)
because a friend was in it and said, don’t you join? I never even thought about it in terms of a career path. But once I got in and experienced a couple of weekends, I thought, actually, this is more me than being a tradesperson. Though I went back to my trade after the Army because that’s where I could earn good money to travel. But it wasn’t what I loved.
And I did it because like most people, you’ve got to work, you’ve got to get your money and you do what you have to do. But it was doing it so I could save money to travel basically.
Jason Elkins (16:25.186)
Yeah, I can, I can be like, I’m curious. You mentioned like things like jungle training and when you joined the army, you know, I don’t know how they do it in Australia, but in the U S you know, I remember my recruiter had all the videos of all the different jobs and I tested pretty well and they kind of said, well, you could pretty much have any job you want. And then they showed me some videos of army Rangers and the swamps and in the mud and, and I thought, wow, and jumping out airplanes.
That’s exciting. So I went that route. I’m curious, did you have a similar experience or when you joined the Army there, do you just join and then they decide what to do with you or did you kind of know what you were getting into?
Tony (17:08.056)
Well, when I joined the reserve unit where I lived, it was only infantry available. And then when I joined the regular army, you go in, everyone goes in, does the same basic training. And then at the end of that, you decide which corps you want to go to. And it’s based upon where the vacancies and that you have a particular skill set, guess. But by that stage, I’d already decided I wanted to be infantry.
Uncle was an engineer in World War II, and he was encouraging me to do that. said, but I already have a trade, and I want to be a grantor, an infantry soldier. So that was my experience, because that was all that was a choice in the city where I lived. And then when I joined the regular army, also I had my corporal in the training unit. He was infantry, so of course he was encouraging people to become infantry as well. But I didn’t take much convincing. I thought, you know, that’s why I want to do it.
be a frontline soldier, I wasn’t particularly interested in doing anything sort of in the background. And it had that extra lever adventure as you describe, you’re doing all those things that, you know, that’s not normal life to go out and be living in the jungle for weeks at a time and doing that type of thing.
Jason Elkins (18:10.349)
And I.
Jason Elkins (18:20.044)
Yeah. And I suspect that when you imagine a whole cohort coming through the basic training and all that stuff, and then they decide, okay, well, where do we need you guys? And if you say, well, I’ll be happy to do infantry. probably, they probably, okay, great. Cause that’s one of the fields that not everybody wants to go into.
So if you’re motivated to do it, I feel like it’s probably not that hard to get into an infantry spot, maybe the spot in the different unit, know, but as opposed to if you want to be a nuclear reactor engineer or something like that, might be a little bit, they might have fewer spots. anyway, that’s enough on that. All right, so let’s go back to, well, actually,
I’m just curious, like family issues, like when you drop out of school, go get a job, and then go join the army. I’m just curious, are there any, what was your family? Were they supportive, family, friends that think you’re crazy? What was going on?
Tony (19:25.626)
When I decided to work, I don’t think my parents were particularly upset about that. father, I don’t think he ever finished high school either. My mum certainly didn’t. They were very working class. I was the oldest, so I think someone earning a wage and not needing their support anymore was probably something that they were happy about. They still had three other kids coming through school and so on.
And then when I joined the army, think they were perhaps a bit surprised. My mother herself had been in the reserve army when she was a younger woman. she knew a little bit about it. And of course, my father’s brother had been in World War II. So I think my father at first was a little reluctant. And then when I, came to my marching hour parade and I somehow managed to get.
the best soldier in the platoons were marching out. I think it changed his attitude quite a lot. was then very proud about my son doing this, because it might have been quite different if we were at war at the time. When I was in, we were pretty much, it was after Vietnam and it was a fairly peaceful period from military standpoint during that period. But yeah, so there wasn’t too much pushback from them apart from perhaps that I’d left and gone interstate.
Jason Elkins (20:37.219)
yeah, that’s…
Tony (20:54.968)
you know, I’d come home on my leave and stuff.
Jason Elkins (20:55.714)
Well, guess that was, yeah, that I guess that was the next question was what about the, you know, being overseas or when you got out of the military and went over to the UK, any pushback? Because they probably hadn’t really traveled much, had they?
Tony (21:13.29)
No, parents, the first time they ever traveled out of the country was when they came to, when I got married in Guyana in the 90s. That was their first time. And that was my father’s only time he ever left Australia. My mother did travel later, but yeah, so for them traveling overseas wasn’t something that their generation did very much. Just wasn’t sort of on their radar. Yeah, so for me going overseas,
Jason Elkins (21:39.779)
Yeah.
Tony (21:43.963)
And it ended up my sister or one of my sisters, did for like 10 years in the UK, another sister came over for a year or so here. My brother traveled a bit. So I was sort of the first one and then eventually all our family at some point spent some and one of my sisters considerable amount of time overseas. So I became used to it. I don’t think I’m in any family when someone’s in the other side of the world, not overly happy about them not being around. And particularly when I…
When I was traveling, there was no internet, so we would save up our 20p courses, our coins, and then once every two weeks go down to the phone box and have a three minute call where you’re just putting in the coins, or sometimes you do a reverse charges and let your parents pay for you to ring them up.
Jason Elkins (22:29.326)
I remember those days. remember calling, actually I remember when I was in the army, was calling my mom, you know, collect so we could chat for a little bit and all right. Yeah.
Tony (22:40.666)
Yeah, but it’s funny, but when I was living back in Australia and I visit my mum and I lived in another city and she said, like, ring me when you get home. was a two hour drive. I got no mum. I lived overseas for years. You didn’t know where you didn’t even know which country. Yeah, you didn’t even know what country it was in half the time, let alone ringing you to tell you it was OK. I’m not ringing you when I get home. So it’s funny when I was closer to home, she was more concerned than when I was the other side of the world. She had no idea what I was doing.
Jason Elkins (22:52.302)
I think I know where this is going.
Tony (23:10.904)
no idea of the risks that…
Jason Elkins (23:14.442)
It’s very interesting because I’ve been traveling full time for four years outside of the US and a lot of different places. And yeah, when I go home and visit, I say go home. I don’t have a home per se. Everything I own is in my suitcase. But when I go back to the States and I visit my mom in Arizona and maybe I borrow her car and I’m gone, you know, I…
Tony (23:15.117)
in travel.
Jason Elkins (23:40.15)
go to a coffee shop to work or something. And if I tell her I’ll be back around five or six, and if I’m not back and I haven’t called her, she’s, she’s super worried about me. And it’s, it’s really interesting because here I am in Thailand and you know, a couple months ago I was in the country of Georgia and she didn’t care where I was. But it’s, but it’s like outside of the realm of, know, if I don’t know, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting how that works. So.
Tony (24:08.474)
Yeah, but because they hadn’t traveled, I guess that they had no rule concept and back then there was no internet and you got a little bit of news on the TV and newspapers, but you didn’t know lot about what was happening in other countries. I guess ignorance is is bliss that they weren’t too worried because they didn’t know.
Jason Elkins (24:22.243)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (24:29.102)
They don’t know what they don’t know. And it’s, it’s hard to visualize things, bad things happening. If you have no concept for what the place is like, which I’m sure was for your dad to visit you that first, first time out of Australia and Guyana is like, that’s a, that’s a pretty big leap. did you ever, mentioned using the phone to do reverse charges. Did you ever like relay a message by doing a reverse charge call where she didn’t actually have to accept the calls? Cause I remember back in the day that.
the system would pick up and say, caller, please say your name. And then they would connect the call and the other person would hear you say your name and they would decide whether they would accept the call or not. Did ever like, mom, I’m home safe? And she answers the phone and says that she’s like, no, I don’t need to accept that call.
Tony (25:18.99)
No, I don’t recall that ever happening. They were happy to play, luckily.
Jason Elkins (25:22.894)
Okay. Well, so, all right. So let’s, get back to you’re in the UK. You apply for this job. You rate yourself at 10 and speaking the Australian language. They look at your skillset, your experiences, and they come up with a place for you to go and you don’t even know where it’s at. okay. So let’s start there from the moment you looked at the map and saw it.
And you thought, wow, it looks, it’s kind of exotic. I didn’t know where it was. So what did that look like? Walk us through that little part of your life. Cause it sounds like it was probably pretty impactful since, since we’re having this conversation today.
Tony (26:05.038)
Yeah, no, that opportunity to travel somewhere like that, to go to somewhere that I didn’t know much about culturally. Well, I mean, the similarities because it was British Kiana, so they speak English, which was lucky because I didn’t have any language skills. But going out there, taking a bunch of young people, which taking young people from 17 to 25 is quite different to commanding a military unit where they just do as they’re told.
I to learn how to lead through negotiation. Well, there’s one very good example on the very first group I took out. were on this little island where no one lived on the Atlantic coast. And we had to build our camps. went in, we cleared the area, we put up tarpoles and slung hammocks. I kept telling them, look, you guys, when you’re finishing your bag, do your bag up because stuff’s going to get in there.
Jason Elkins (26:34.414)
you
instead of push ups.
Tony (27:03.854)
But do think they do it? Not at all. Until one day there was this scream and everyone in the camp came rushing. This girl had stuck her hand in to pull out her toilet roll and out of the middle of the toilet roll this huge spider ran up her arm. Well, I never had to tell them again about shutting your bag when you’re finishing there. It took a lesson like that and then everyone understood what I was saying after that. So it was a change for me to try and teach people and get them to understand.
without it just being a direct order. So it was quite interesting for me to take people out into remote areas, look after them, teach them skills to live in the jungle. And they’ve probably never even been in a tent, let alone living in the jungle, digging a hole to use as a toilet, bathing in the river, that type of thing. So we were sent out. In fact, the expedition was meant to go to Brazil and it was very changed.
very quickly changed to Guyana and I can’t remember why something happened in Brazil and I had to change it. So the planning for that particular expedition wasn’t as comprehensive and thorough as it might have been ordinarily. So we arrived to find not everything planned and I was then sent out to a community right out on the border with Suriname, remote community for my second phase looking after a group and halfway through this, they well, we don’t have a third phase for you.
You have to create it. So there I’m now.
Jason Elkins (28:31.47)
You got to figure that out during the second phase.
Tony (28:35.096)
Yeah, so I went out and I did a reconnaissance. said, I think we can get people from this river through to where we are. So I got a local indigenous guide and I took one of the ventures with us. It was a young French gentleman. And we did this trek through just sort of simple trails through the jungle to see if we could connect with this group on another river. don’t know, maybe it was a hundred kilometer between the two and we had to connect them through the middle of the jungle.
which we managed to do, though we never quite finished it because I had an accident building a shelter one night. I put the machete through my knuckle here. Luckily, the French man was a trainee doctor, but he didn’t have a really serious first aid kit, which was lucky in retrospect because we then had to walk back 24 hours back to the village, got back. We have a doctor in our group. It’s nighttime by now. We only have kerosene lamps. There’s no electricity.
Jason Elkins (29:15.502)
technologies.
Tony (29:33.89)
and he had no painkillers. So I just had to drink a bit of rum, put a stick in my mouth whilst he had to cut back down my finger to find the other end of the tendon to pull it together.
Jason Elkins (29:44.782)
All right, let’s change this up.
Maybe maybe our listeners don’t know this, but I’m a little squeamish.
Tony (29:49.561)
So.
Tony (29:52.845)
Ahaha
Jason Elkins (29:56.438)
Even with some of the medical stuff I did in the army. Yeah, I know. And that’s, I, I had no problem. I actually was in a medical student in the national guard after I get, I don’t have a problem seeing it for some reason, when people describe things, I just, my whole body just reacts. So, but, but let me ask you this though, but you were kind of on the reconnaissance. You weren’t with the whole group when this happened, this was more of the reconnaissance trying to work out.
Tony (29:56.707)
You’re an ex-soldier.
Tony (30:13.114)
Yeah.
Tony (30:21.434)
No, no, no. that yes, well, the rest of our group was back in the in the community, indigenous community, and we were doing some medical work, different things there. So that, you know, we were just gone for a couple of days, getting ready for the next phase. So we left the balance of the group there with the the doctor was like the the deputy project leader. So that was fine. mean, and we went off to do this reconnaissance.
Jason Elkins (30:43.63)
Okay. When you got back, right? When you got back, did you have a slightly more exciting story to what happened to your hand? If you know what I mean?
Tony (30:58.594)
No, was… it was exciting enough. No!
Jason Elkins (31:00.31)
You didn’t blame a Jaguar. It was exciting. I’m sure there wasn’t, there wasn’t any stories of the Jaguar that came in or anything like that, that you used for your, okay.
Tony (31:10.572)
No, was exciting enough cutting my own finger with a machete while making a shelter. That was enough.
Jason Elkins (31:14.924)
Maybe, yeah, okay. All right, very cool. So let me help me understand. This particular group was like the inaugural group, which is why you’re trying to figure all this stuff out, because you were supposed to go to Brazil, but that fell through, so you ended up in Guyana with them, right? Am I tracking?
Tony (31:23.098)
Yeah.
Tony (31:36.251)
Yeah, so the expedition got changed to Guyana. there was, it’s a long time ago now, there was probably 120 people on expedition and then they’re broken up into smaller groups. Normally around 15 people go off to different parts of the country doing various projects. Maybe some of you have a scientific angle or helping a community or just pure adventure. Yeah, so we were out with a group. We were split into two groups.
Jason Elkins (31:59.491)
Mm-hmm.
Tony (32:05.316)
two groups, the two communities, couple of kilometers apart, doing medical work, things like that. And then the final phase, which I was doing reconnaissance for, was change over groups. And then we were just taking indigenous dugout canoes to paddle up river, which was quite exciting. And then some of the guys in the group got a bit bored then on and said, we want to walk back. And I said, well, you can’t walk back yourself. I’ll have to come with you.
then did a four day walk back through the rainforest with no maps. We managed to find various hunting trails and logging trails and got our way back. So that was the type of thing.
Jason Elkins (32:46.638)
I think I’m understanding why the company appreciated your experience in jungle training and in the military, if they’re going to send you off with, I don’t know if I want to say kids, but young people into the jungles of South America. Kind of makes sense.
Tony (33:06.446)
Yeah, yeah, no, it, because you’re out there very remote, was no one watching over you. I mean, we had HF radios and we’d radio once a day and give a report on what was happening. But otherwise you were left to your own devices to some extent to try and achieve things. And on an adventure phase, well, what’s more adventurous than making it up as you go and just, all right, we’re just gonna, yeah.
Jason Elkins (33:32.14)
I love it. think it’s cool.
Tony (33:34.02)
We’re going to walk back instead of taking the boats down the river, which is obvious where you’ve got to go. We’re going to walk back instead. So it was quite adventurous.
Jason Elkins (33:39.788)
Yeah. Let me ask you this and maybe you’re involved in still doing some similar stuff, but I guess my initial question is, do you think you could turn that into a business model now and the current age of internet, social media, and that age group? you think it, do you think it even could work or what would, I mean, or just be a lot different? What do you think?
Tony (34:06.82)
Well, these organizations still run. So Operation Rally is now called Rally International. They still exist. And there’s been lots of offshoots from that. That was like the original Operation Rally. So you got World Challenge and various other organizations that have created business out of this. they primarily, think these days, take senior high school students. There might be 11 or 12.
on expeditions to remote places. So using the same sort of idea of learning through leadership and exposure to difficult situations. that’s certainly a business model that gets rolled out globally.
Jason Elkins (34:46.274)
Yeah, that’s, yeah, you’re right. There’s, I know of there’s, think it’s Knowles and maybe a few other, I’m not going to mention any other names because I might get them wrong. I know Knowles does that. but I wonder how long would you have your group? So when you do an expedition, how, what time period are we talking about?
Tony (35:06.97)
What the…
Well, it was a three month expedition and in three phases. So pretty much each phase was around a month, give or take transfer times and things like that. So you had three to four weeks with each group before you changed over and went to different areas.
Jason Elkins (35:12.686)
three months.
Jason Elkins (35:21.431)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (35:25.068)
And would you do this, was the idea to do this back to back? So you’d have one group show up. They spend three months with you bounce them, maybe bouncing around a little bit between leaders and stuff. But, and then was the idea that you’d be, you’d take the next group right away or was there periods in between, or what did your, guess, what did your life look like?
Tony (35:41.851)
Well, I just did that one expedition that took me to Guyana. it was basically I committed to a three months, did that expedition of which it was three phases. Then I left and went to the States and traveled for three months. I ended up the following year.
Jason Elkins (35:59.276)
When did you when I’m sorry, I was just going to ask you, is there a point early on in this process where you knew you were going to go back to Guyana or does this or does that come later in this conversation?
Tony (36:09.582)
No.
Yeah, no, it was a one-off. Well, that’s what I thought it was going to be a one-off. And I just went traveling for a few more months before I went back to Australia. I did another exhibition because I enjoyed it so much. I then did one in Australia the following year with Operation Rally. So the same three months we went. were in far northwest Queensland. So we’re on my territory now. I was doing mainly rafting down.
really remote rivers out in the middle of the outback. That was primarily the groups I was doing and a bit of diving. So I did one the following year because I enjoyed it so much. My girlfriend at the time wasn’t happy that I went off on another expedition. But you know, I was by then about 27 or 28 and I wanted to do these things. And at the end of that expedition in Australia, I thought I want to get involved in tourism.
But my timing was not good because we were up in Cairns, far northwest Queensland, or sorry, Cairns is eastern Queensland. But it was at the time when pilots were on strike for six months in Australia. And Cairns being so remote, you know, it’s 4,000 kilometres from Melbourne to Cairns, it’s 3,000 from Sydney, which is where most of the people would be coming for holidays. Well, they didn’t come that far because they’re not going to drive for four days to get there. So my timing was bad.
The industry was dead. So I said, OK, I’m just going to go back and work and I’m going to study some tourism. So at that point, I was living in Newcastle. And so I inquired, like, what tourism related course can I do? And the local schools and technical colleges had nothing apart from a travel agent’s course. I didn’t want to be a travel agent, but I thought, you know, I’m working during the day. This is a part time course. I’ll do this travel agent’s course because it
Tony (38:10.362)
has some tourism related content. Yeah, and so I learned how to write tickets. And back in those days, there’d be a book, know, it’d be six or eight inches thick, which had every single airline combination and tickets and what the price every month this new book would get delivered. So I knew how to work out a flight cost, which of course these days just go to the computer and work it out. Learn to type, I had to learn to type, which was actually a skill that…
Jason Elkins (38:12.782)
Might learn something. Yeah.
Tony (38:37.338)
was very good later in life, you know, as I went and got computers. Anyway, and part of the geography we’ve been taught about the tourism highlights of different countries and we’re doing South America. She goes, and these three countries here, Guyana, Australia and French, you don’t need to know about them. There’s nothing there. I said, hang on a second, I’ve been there. And he’s saying there’s nothing there. It’s got the world’s tallest single drop water for me. There’s nothing there. And that sort of became for me is like when I’m going to get involved, it’s like.
Jason Elkins (38:39.032)
Yeah, that’s a good one.
Jason Elkins (38:54.434)
Yeah.
Tony (39:07.296)
I aim to for the curriculum when people do this course in the future to Guyana will be mentioned because the work I do will put it on the map. So I came away from it.
Jason Elkins (39:15.992)
Let me ask you this. In hindsight, do you think it was just that she didn’t know anything about those areas? there were, she said, don’t worry about those areas because there’s nothing there, meaning she didn’t know anything was there or because sometimes we do that, right?
Tony (39:31.887)
To be fair, there was no real tourism infrastructure. So I was doing that course in 1990, and the following year is when I went to Garton and started working there. And to be fair, there was very little tourism infrastructure. There was good things there, but not being presented to people. No, exactly. They could book a flight there.
Jason Elkins (39:51.435)
or
Jason Elkins (39:54.998)
something a travel agent could book probably so as a travel agent as a travel agent you don’t need to worry about it because there’s really nothing there for you to sell so yeah but she probably wasn’t expecting you to be sitting having you know spent three months there almost cut your hand off and you knew things were there
Tony (40:03.758)
No,
Tony (40:13.178)
Yeah, yeah. And so and so during that that year, so basically when it didn’t work out to to get a job in Cannes, I all right, I’m going to and work again for a year. Save up my money, try and do some some travel or educate myself a bit in the travel industry, and then I’m going to throw in a backpack. So I’ve got another friend now and my girlfriend at the time. And we bought a ticket to Miami.
And then we’re like, all right, where are we going to from here? And we bought a one-way ticket to Santiago in Chile. And the only two things we had booked was to be in Rio for carnival. So we booked a hotel to be in carnival. And then the next thing was we booked tickets to see Australia versus West Indies cricket in Guyana because I’d been to Guyana, I want to go back there. I like cricket.
Why not go? The two works. There’s only two things. The rest of it was just, we’ve got a backpack on, we’ll get a bus. We’ll go to the bus station and see where the buses are going. We had a guidebook and we did some of the signs. But apart from that, we were just making up as we went. Anyway, we arrived in Guyana eventually for lots of ventures through South America. I remember the dates, the 20th of March 1991 was when the test match started.
For an American audience, a five-day game as a test. So we were there for five days to watch that game. So I went back to Guyana simply because I’d been there. I enjoyed it. And there’s cricket on. And so I…
Jason Elkins (41:54.947)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it makes sense. I want to ask you this real quick, because you’ve mentioned my girlfriend at the time twice. And what I heard the first time was my girlfriend at the time didn’t really want me to go on do these expeditions. She wasn’t happy. And then the next time I heard my girlfriend at the time, she was going with you. That’s what I was getting at.
Tony (42:17.198)
Same girlfriend.
Jason Elkins (42:21.162)
So she didn’t have a problem with the adventurous lifestyle. She just didn’t want you to go off and do it while she was doing something else. Is that, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
Tony (42:30.114)
Yeah, we met in London and then I went for this expedition to Guyana. She wasn’t unhappy about it, but it was three months. And then we met in Miami and there’s a whole story about that. But we met in Miami, did three months through the States. But she had been overseas longer than me and wanted to go back home and spend some time. I went with her. I wasn’t ready to go home. My mate stayed for another five years living in London after that.
But I hadn’t finished my travels and so I said I want to go again. And she liked to travel and by then she’d been home for a year and a half or two years. So she was OK to travel again. But then we got to Guyana and that changed things then. I met up. Yeah, yeah. So we were at the cricket. I contacted someone, you my first chips. I’m an Irishman working at the only international hotels, a forte hotel, a British company.
Jason Elkins (43:09.358)
Did. Yeah.
Okay, that changed things. Tell me more.
Tony (43:27.642)
He was a manager at hotel. Now, I never expected him to still be there two years later. Normally, after a couple of years, you’d move on to another hotel, but he was still there. So we called up, made a few drinks, and he said, we have just opened this little jungle lodge, and we need a manager. Do you want to stay for six months and manage it? And so the next day, he picked us up to take us up to have a look at this. So it’s a river trip to get there. It’s near an indigenous community.
Jason Elkins (43:46.893)
Hmm.
Tony (43:56.877)
little lodge and my girlfriend says to me you don’t know anything about tourism you can’t do this well that was like a
Jason Elkins (44:04.878)
Did you tell her you had your travel agent training?
Tony (44:08.629)
She knew we were together then so she knew about that. But it was like, you’re telling me I can’t do it. So we split up over that, she left and I stayed in Guyana because I thought I want to give it a go and it was only meant to be for six months. But it ended up being three years running this little lodge.
Jason Elkins (44:29.318)
wow. I’m curious because I worked at a fairly remote lodge in Belize and it was offshore 30 miles off and they kind of had a pattern of hiring couples, you know, as opposed to just a one person, they would oftentimes hire a couple because otherwise it can get kind of lonely.
So when you got that job, was it presented as the two of you can stay and run this place? And she’s like, Nope, I’m out. Or was, I was just curious how that was.
Tony (45:01.274)
Yeah, think she probably could have stayed. That was never got to that. And yeah, and to be honest, you know, I was employed by an international hotel chain. had a room in the hotel. Tourism was just starting. was initially mostly day trips. So it was leaving from the hotel going out. So, you know, I wasn’t living there permanently. I’d be up there a couple of nights a week as we built up business. So it wasn’t like you were going to be
Jason Elkins (45:07.776)
if she wanted to.
Jason Elkins (45:21.486)
Okay.
Jason Elkins (45:29.718)
Okay.
Tony (45:31.31)
completely isolated. So it was within a couple of hours from the city. So traditionally we’d be taking, so I’d be the driver driving the four wheel drive. I’d then launch the boat. I’d drive the boat. I’d get up there, I’d serve drinks, serve lunch, take walks through the rainforest. And then as business built up a little bit, some people from the local community, indigenous people, they became involved and so they would run it. And so we gradually built up.
We were taking it from where there was a building, but no real product. There was a boat, there was a four wheel drive, there was a lodge. And so we created the, yeah. So we basically created the experience. What would we do when people come up there? And so we worked together, got local people involved and created an experience. then my mate, who I first left Australia with after about six or seven months later said,
Jason Elkins (46:07.946)
And you.
Jason Elkins (46:15.96)
Mm-hmm.
Tony (46:28.666)
after five years I’m going back to Australia, said, well, instead of going via Asia, which I think is now, I said, come via Guyana. So he came to visit. This is in end of 1991. He’s still living there now, married to a local girl. He never left. So yeah, sometimes these things just happen.
Jason Elkins (46:46.188)
Hey, Tony. Yeah. You mentioned one thing that I’m curious about because I heard you say when the whole airline issue happened and you went back to work and you thought, I want to go take a course so can learn more about tourism. found the travel agent course. I’m curious. Do you remember at that time feeling like you knew what the gap was? Cause you’re like, I want to learn more about tourism. Did you feel there were particular gaps that were getting in the way?
at that time. And now when you look back in hindsight, do you think you even needed to do travel agent school? Or did you get something useful out of that? what’s, and the reason I’m asking is because there’s a lot of people that may be listening to this right now that, I really want to work in tourism, but they’re not sure how to get started. And sometimes people hold back because they feel like they have to go to school or they need to do things. So I’m just curious what your, what your experience was with that.
Tony (47:44.537)
Yeah, have I really used that course since? Not as it was designed, but I’ve used elements of it. As I said, I learned to type. yeah, so that was a key skill I needed once I started the business. Understanding how flights work, that was mildly useful. So a lot of it, and the geography generally, but it wasn’t the area I to go. I saw myself as being a tour guide.
Jason Elkins (47:53.006)
typing. Yeah.
Tony (48:13.558)
out leading tours and I didn’t really understand the business very well at that point. I had an idea of what I want to be out in nature, taking people on trips and I knew them from my expeditions. I had certain skill sets of, you I knew how to trek and take boating, knew how to look after people in remote areas, knew some basic level of first aid to keep them safe and so on. So I had those skills. Like what I didn’t know was
How do I make a job out of this? That was a bit that I, and I thought by going to Cairns, there’ll be companies up there. I can get trained as a whitewater rafter or I can take trekking trips into the rainforest there. Cause I know how to do that. I can read a map. I know how to use a compass. So I envisaged myself as being a tour guide, working for someone. But then, you know.
Jason Elkins (48:46.2)
Got it.
Jason Elkins (49:06.219)
Right. Cause based on what I’d heard you, based on what I’d heard you describing, it sounded like you actually came to that. Even before you started the travel agent school, you actually probably had a lot of the key skills and experiences kind of already baked in is what I’m thinking. So I guess what I’m asking is, you know, do you feel like you needed a lot more training or you’re able to figure it out? Obviously, because we’re having this conversation today.
Tony (49:32.186)
Yeah, I mean taking a trek from A to B, I knew how to do that and I guess even today I
Jason Elkins (49:39.512)
But with the people, but with the people is the hard part or the part that some people fail at.
Tony (49:42.659)
Yeah. But even today, you still use a lot of the military skills I learned. I understand logistics. I know how to plan because they’re things that you learn to the military and that I can still use in my business today. So those skills were there. But I had no idea about how to run a business, how to create an invoice. And probably the hardest bit is
Jason Elkins (50:05.474)
Well, that’s the hard part for a lot of us.
Tony (50:10.05)
is how, you know, it’s one thing creating an experience, there’s another thing selling it. How do you market it and sell it? And so they were skills that I guess, I didn’t really know that that’s what I needed, but I knew I needed some training and understanding of those things, but ended up I didn’t really get it because there was nothing available at that time where I was living. So I then had to learn all that on the job and discover it for myself. So.
When I started in tourism in Guyana, was the very beginning of the industry really. So prior to that politically, tourism was frowned upon in Guyana. You’re in a country that had a lot of slavery that led into indentured labor, had only become independent in 1966. There was still a lot of, like one of the former presidents said, we’re not a people of service.
that was associated with those times of slavery and you had to provide service. so tourism was frowned upon really, but there was a change happening where now in the government there was the Ministry of, if I’m getting the name right now, Trade, Industry and Tourism. So tourism was the little brother in that portfolio. And so the government was starting to change.
Jason Elkins (51:30.734)
I heard you say and I want to dig a little deeper. What I heard you say, I don’t know what you said, but what I heard was tourism was looked down upon because in order to serve foreigners, I’m trying to think of how to say this, white people from the north, in order to serve them at the level that they’re going to
feel like they’re being taken care of maybe is reminiscent of some things that have happened in the past. Is that what I heard? that without? Okay.
Tony (52:05.018)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, more or less. Guyanese are normally just very hospitable, friendly people, but there was this feeling and that was sort of, I think, at a political level, that was as where it manifested and was promoted. But there was a change in attitude. So I was coming in when so that the hotel I was working for was encouraged by the government.
get involved in tourism. So they, with a local family, created this small company. They got some, I think, some tax concessions to bring in some boats and four-wheel drive. So the government was like, all right, well, without really probably knowing and understanding, they wanted to promote tourism. There was no clear plan.
Jason Elkins (52:53.742)
So during this three years, you were working for the International Hotel who is kind of running this part. That was your thing. I’m curious. Would you describe it more of like you were just kind of on your own to figure it out? Or did you have a mentor with the hotel? how would you describe that? I’m sure you learned a lot in those three years.
Tony (53:16.942)
Hmm. yeah, yeah. So Paul Stevenson, who was the manager of the hotel, the person who I met on my first trip and employed me, I guess he was the key person I’d go to. So he’s a hotelier, a business hotelier, you know, not running a jungle lodge, but the fundamentals are you’ve got to feed people, you’ve got to have drinks for them, you’ve got to make up their beds and clean their toilets. So the fundamentals of that, you’ve just got to transfer that.
out to the Dungle Lodge and so I would learn through that. So I went in, I was made part of the management team in the hotel. So the hotel had a structure, there was a deputy manager, there was a head of accounts and everything like that. they became my peers and I would learn off them. I learned how to write an invoice and how to keep accounts and things through those people. All those things that I couldn’t get in a course previously.
I now learn by asking people in the hotel and learning about that. so I was learning those skills. We had very little market because there wasn’t a lot of people coming in to go out. And most of our business was business people who were staying in the hotel, perhaps had a weekend where they had nothing to do. So they want to do something. So we able to sell them a day trip or an overnight trip and take them out there. And so we were starting to create these small packages.
Saturday, Sunday type packages, but that you were never going to build it up very much because you’re relying on who’s in the country and who’s staying over a weekend. So it was was very small business. But then.
Jason Elkins (54:59.064)
What about integrating? I mean, obviously you integrated well, but I’m curious, you know, as far as you integrating into the society and working with, pardon me, local partners, especially at the jungle lodge, was that challenge? What can you tell us about that?
Tony (55:19.034)
Yeah, through the hotel, I’m working, the manager and deputy manager, Irish, everyone else is pretty much Guyanese there. So I’m integrating into the community. Then after a couple of months, so I started in the May, so probably June or July of somewhere around that time, we were asked to come to a meeting at the Ministry of Tourism. So a bunch of people, I hadn’t met before, we all met.
at the Ministry of Tourism then to find out the minister had canceled the meeting without notifying any of us. So we are now, I don’t know, seven or eight people. We’re there, we’re rather annoyed. And like, we know this is just not right that we’ve been invited to a meeting then canceled without notifying. So we went back to the hotel I was working for and we had a meeting and we said, right, we’re gonna make a stand on this. We’re gonna form an association for private sector. So.
You know, it’s funny how time is. If I hadn’t been there at that time and been involved, this may not have happened. But so I then became the chairman of the steering committee to form the Tourism Association of Guyana. So out of that small group, a couple of weeks later.
Jason Elkins (56:35.928)
So it’s good that they canceled the meeting, it sounds like. It worked out well for you. And probably the whole country.
Tony (56:39.802)
Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. So we a couple weeks later. So we had a meeting at the hotel. We invited broadly of anyone that had some sort of relationship to tourism, and we had quite a big room of people. And I remember it was an hour or two of meeting and what we’re going to do, what our aims. And the one thing I really remember is someone stood up in the meeting and said, I don’t think we should be doing this. We should be waiting for the government.
to do something. And I remember that’s the one thing about the meeting, like, no, we can’t wait on them. We have to do something. And so we then went through, there’s a bunch of us, a core group of people that we formed this committee. We wrote, we took Articles Association from other similar organizations, tailored to what we, and we went registered the association. So it had all the legal work done. So by the end of that year of 91, we had our first annual general meeting.
because I’d been sort of steering it to some extent. I was the first president of the Tourism Association of Guyana. That was, I think it was in December 91. So that association now is much bigger and stronger. It’s now become the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana. So we have 35 years or whatever it is later. Association is the main private sector association that works with the government in helping to develop tourism.
That early start, so that got me really connected to everyone within the industry, or the very few people that were involved in the industry. And through the association, we then as an association started going to trade shows internationally. So we went to ITB Berlin, which is the largest trade show in the world, world travel market in the UK, which, you and these shows we’re still going to now, you 35 years later. So it was through that that we…
Started going to trade shows, but then we get to a trade show their very first one I went to a world travel market We didn’t have our own booth We asked Lee out of regional airline who had a big booth with only one person on it. Can we share your booth? Yes, you can have this half here. You got to pay for your own furniture. Okay but then Collateral material we didn’t have posters or banners. So It’s embarrassing thinking about it was like a school project. So we had sheets of paper
Jason Elkins (58:39.543)
Yeah.
Tony (59:05.22)
Polaroid photos and then we hand wrote the name of our lodge and stuck those on the wall. This is an international trade show. So we were there looking like we’re some.
Jason Elkins (59:14.144)
And I suspect, I suspect a map as well. Cause I’m sure the question was Guyana, where is that?
Tony (59:18.282)
No, we probably didn’t have a map. So we went not knowing anything about how to market it. When you think back, was embarrassing. It was like a school project. And then people would come up and chat to us and say, OK, well, tell us about your net rates. We’re like, what are net rates? We had no idea what they were talking about. So it was a baptism of fire. was like, OK, we need to find out what we don’t know.
Jason Elkins (59:40.408)
We only have one set of rates. Yeah.
Tony (59:48.409)
So we would just start digging. I remember I sharing a room with a colleague at three in the morning. He’s like, what are you doing? I’m awake. I said, I can’t sleep. got all those ideas. I’m writing down in my notebook all these ideas because we’re being exposed to all of this. And now all of a sudden, it’s like flooded with things. I can’t sleep because I just got so many ideas and how we need to do things. So we’re sitting up at three in the morning. We have a beer and just
Jason Elkins (01:00:07.607)
Mm-hmm.
Tony (01:00:17.85)
write down all these ideas and how we’re going to take things forward. So they were incredibly exciting times because we just, we didn’t know what we didn’t know to be honest. And I look at people coming to shows now and think, you know, we can give you advice and help you. We had no one. We just had to play the seat of our pants and be embarrassed. And I remember going to some operators year after year, can we have a meeting? No, can we have a meeting? No, can we have a meeting? In the end, all right, let’s have a meeting because you’re not going away.
and learn about being persistent as well and just keep going. So we then learnt about what we needed as an industry. so forming that association brought us all together and so we were able to learn off each other and then having some strength and being able to go to these trade shows and eventually get the government on board and they still to today then fund the booth at those particular shows. So that was…
Jason Elkins (01:00:49.058)
Mm-hmm.
Tony (01:01:17.282)
a big change and then by going there I realized, know, my core role is to sell beds and fill beds at this lodge. I’m running a lodge, but to be successful I have to have heads on beds. How am going to do that? Who’s coming all the way to Guyana to stay at this little lodge? After two nights you’ve done everything. And that’s when I thought, what if I combined our lodge with another lodge, some nights in the hotel that I work for.
a city tour, trip out to the waterfall. So I then created a seven day package. You know, I didn’t even know that I was creating a package. I was putting these things together. And then that was sort of the light bulb moment, I guess, where you realize, oh, we’re creating packages here. So then I convinced the company to change its name. So we created a name called Tropical Adventures because the lodge was Timberhead Jungle Lodge. But now we’re creating
Jason Elkins (01:02:03.182)
you
Tony (01:02:15.706)
tour operator, we came to Tropical Adventures and we started packaging ourselves and the very few other lodges or places that had any accommodation into seven and 14 night packages and taking that to the market. So that was when we started getting a few tour operators now. So normally quite specialized, maybe bird watching tour operators and things of strong interest in wildlife.
buying the packages that we were creating. So we sort of fell into that because my aim was to sell beds in the lodge I was operating. But to do that, I started creating packages. And then I realized, actually, I could create a business out of this. No one’s really doing this. Most of the people in Guyana were doing day trips and so on. So that’s when we thought, so by then I was,
Jason Elkins (01:02:54.466)
Mm-hmm.
Tony (01:03:14.318)
During that period, met a local Guyanese woman and we got married and we decided, okay, well, why don’t we start a business? so the idea was we were going to create a business that was long haul, long stay, as in people are gonna travel a long way to come and stay for a week or two. We’re not after one day tourism or two nights or something. We’re after, we wanna sell packages and our marketing is gonna be done overseas.
Because at that time, the only tourists we had were people in the country for business and would have a weekend off. We no, we’ve got to create a business where the people are buying a trip to come for a holiday. Yeah. So we’ve got to hit them in the marketplace when they’re thinking about where are we going on holidays? And so we said, have to do that through the trade. We don’t have the reach as a little company. So that we became very trade focused, which is still our core focus today.
Jason Elkins (01:03:53.72)
come there for a reason for a holiday.
Jason Elkins (01:04:10.902)
early on. Right? Early on, what was the biggest objection when you go to a show? And you say where you’re from? Or? I’m sure there were some stereotypes or attitudes or something. I’m just curious what came up in the beginning as
I know, I’m, I don’t know if that’s a good, that’s not a great, well thought out question, but my point is what were, what were, what was the pushback in the beginning? Too hot, too many bugs, do whatever kind of stories people have.
Tony (01:04:42.372)
Guyana? no, we don’t sell Africa. No, it’s not Africa, it’s South America.
Jason Elkins (01:04:48.686)
good response I like it.
Tony (01:04:50.266)
So we’re constantly mistaken, I guess, for gamma. People just don’t… Yeah, people don’t know where Guyana is. And even today, even people living in South America, how many people don’t know? There’s only 13 countries in the continent. So if you’re in Chile, chances are you couldn’t even point out where Guyana or Suriname or French Guyana were on the map. So just completely below the radar. So the biggest challenge was the fact that…
Jason Elkins (01:04:55.875)
Yeah, yeah, I bet.
Tony (01:05:19.738)
no one knew where you were, let alone what they could do there. They didn’t know the name of the country. They didn’t know what continent was in. So very much at the beginning, we had to educate people about Guyana as a destination. And we still do even today. It’s still little known compared to the bigger destinations like, you everyone knows Machu Picchu in Peru and they know about Chile and Argentina, but lots of people still don’t know where Guyana is. So that was the biggest challenge is just one.
where it is and then why would we go there? We then have to explain to them because you want to get into truly remote wild places? That’s what Gaena offers. So to give a comparison, Gaena is about 800,000 people. It’s physically the size roughly of Great Britain with 800,000 people.
It only has one north-south road running through the country. It is only sealed for about the first 100 miles up. That is a dirt track through the rainforest of Brazil. 87 % of the country is covered in rainforest. It’s part of what’s called the Guiana Shield, which is one of the four remaining large tracks of pristine rainforest left in the world. So it’s really remote, untouched. So we have to educate people about, and we still do today, why would you come to Guiana?
Well, if you want to get off the beaten track, come to a country where the country gets maybe 300,000 people come into the country a year. But most of those are Guyanese who now are coming back on a US or Canadian passport, for example. People coming purely for a holiday for tourism. We estimate it’s four or five thousand people. There’s no statistics kept to be able to differentiate between.
someone who’s coming with a Guyanese connection to visit their auntie or their mum and the tourist. you’re coming to a place that, match your picture, has more people in a day than Guyana has in a year for tourism. So we’re attracting people that want to get off the beaten track, experiencing a really untouched rainforest with very few other people around. I mean, you can go on a trip and, apart from the local…
Tony (01:07:38.65)
you’re probably not going to encounter another tourist on your travels.
Jason Elkins (01:07:44.174)
Is there anything else that, you know, if you go back to this time when you guys were working on this, that, that if you mentioned the word Guyana or the name of Guyana to people outside, maybe in North America, there’s maybe a common story or something that they’ve heard about Guyana that maybe is the only thing they know about the country. And is it, is it something you had to overcome? Yeah, I’m leading a little bit.
Tony (01:08:04.889)
Yeah.
Tony (01:08:08.346)
Yes, you’re leading to Jonestown. Yeah. No!
Jason Elkins (01:08:13.75)
Yeah, if you don’t want to talk, I’m also giving you the opportunity to say, Nope, don’t know what you’re talking about.
Tony (01:08:18.574)
No, absolutely. So, yeah, if people did know Guyana, particularly from North America, the only thing they knew about Guyana was Jonestown. So for those who don’t know, Jim Jones, a preacher from the Midwest, ended up in San Francisco, created the People’s Temple. It was made up of a lot of people, I guess, on the lower socioeconomic scale.
He did a lot of good, I think, as I understand it, in San Francisco back then, helping underprivileged people or minorities. Then he decided he was going to create Nirvana. He was going to take his congregation and create their own place. He was under a of political pressure, I think, in the States. And for one reason or another, he chose Guyana, and the government allowed them to take some land in the far northwest of the country.
And it was just rainforest. They went in and they cut it down. They planted farms. They built houses. It was called Jonestown. And it was, as I understand it, reasonably successful in terms of being able to live in this hostile environment. But he was getting pretty weird taking drugs and things like that. And it all got out of control.
But there was relatives back in San Francisco who, like their loved ones are gone and they’re not hearing from them and what’s happening. So the government sent down Senator Ryan to Guyana to investigate. Then he came into the community and there were some people who wanted to defect. And prior to that, they were rehearsing potentially what they were calling White Night.
so it would be basically suicide. So when Senator Ryan went back to the airstrip a couple miles from there, a bunch of Jones’s sort of security went to the airstrip and shot him. I think it was about five people got shot in the end, journalists and various people in the entourage, the rest escaped. And then because they knew that once they’d done that, how are they going to get out of this? So then 900 odd.
Tony (01:10:45.722)
people committed suicide slash murder that night. So don’t drink the Kool-Aid is the saying, well actually it was flavor aid with cyanide in it. children had it syringed into their mouths. People took up willingly, other people under duress took it, you know, even with a rifle pointed at them. Jones himself showed himself in the head rather than drinking the Kool-Aid. So was 900 people.
That was the big story and that was 1978. So when I started in the early 90s, it was still fresh in some people’s memory. That was the only thing. It was if somehow…
Don’t go to Guyana because that, it’s Guyana’s fault and it’s a terrible place.
Jason Elkins (01:11:31.822)
Yeah, isn’t that interesting how we do that? We have nothing else to relate to a place except for what we saw in the news or heard. Columbia is a good example. mean, a slightly different example, things happened back in the 80s, 90s. Not that they don’t, things happen everywhere, but a lot of people my age or even my parents, you know, when I started traveling and said, I’m going to Columbia, I was like, whoa, why would you want to go there?
because all they saw was things on the news. so it’s hard if you don’t have anything to balance that out, it’s pretty tough. Do you think it had a negative impact on tourism? If that had never happened, do you think tourism would have got a stronger footing quicker or do you think it made any impact at all? Just your guess. I know we, I don’t have a crystal ball. don’t know, but.
Tony (01:12:23.318)
Well, yeah, yeah, I mean, I came to Guyana first time 10 years after that happened and there was a lot to talk about. But then in the 90s, when I was working, of course, you talk a lot more about that. Did it have a negative impact? did in terms of people. That’s the only thing they knew about. If it didn’t happen, would we have got tourism earlier? Probably not, because it was only during that period where
businesses started getting involved in tourism. So for most people they knew nothing about Guyana. and then there was a few who had that negative view because of Jonestown. It was like, well, that wasn’t Guyana. That was a bunch of Americans in Guyana doing that. And it’s a bit unfair that Guyana got the bad name. Yeah, but
Jason Elkins (01:13:11.438)
I agree. And honestly, but honestly, people that really kind of get would get stuck on that are probably not your target audience anyway, when it comes to tourism clients, right?
Tony (01:13:22.446)
Yeah. But we’re also seeing so last year a small company, they launched a tour up to Jonestown. Now I’ve been back there with film crew. There’s nothing left. It’s just overgrown. All the buildings are gone. But people still sometimes want to travel there because they want to go to that location. And there was a lot of pushback locally from some elements in the community who remembered it. Well, we shouldn’t be bringing this up and remembering and other people saying, no, we
We do need to be doing it. We do need to be remembering these sort of things. And so there was even some coverage late last year, CNN and so on being done. And I think the attitudes changing in the country, you it happened quite a long time ago now. And it’s like, you can try and sweep it under the rug or you can face it and accept it and tell the story. And there’s plenty of
bad things happen in world, but the people go to, you know, look at 9-11 and people go to New York to go to ground zero. And it’s become a tourist thing. Is that bad? No, it’s a similar sort of story.
Jason Elkins (01:14:34.348)
Yeah, it’s, it’s a tough thing that a lot of places. Yeah. A lot of places deal with that. I spoke with somebody here on the show that did a lot of work in Berlin, you know, conversations about how do we tell the story of the Holocaust without seeming commercial and trying to make money off of it. You know, it’s kind of a similar thing. Tony we’ve
We’ve discussed a lot and I know that there’s probably a lot more we could keep going. We could probably do three or four episodes just about your story and what we’re chatting about. But I also want to be respectful of your time and our listeners. So I’m curious, what did I forget to ask you? What do you wish I had asked you or what do you want to make sure our clients, our clients, our listeners know about you, Guyana, the business, anything else that you think is important before we wrap up?
Tony (01:15:29.07)
Yeah, so a really important part of our business, which I hadn’t expected at beginning, is our work with indigenous communities. So back in around 99, we started with the first community, Saram, and we signed an memorandum of understanding with them. Now, their community was rightly rather suspicious. Who are these outsiders coming in? Our experiences, we always get ripped off.
And the village leader said, no, he said, let’s give it a try. We’ve got a contract, if they don’t meet that. so that memorandum of understanding lasted for two years. We’ve never resigned one since because we developed, I guess, a mutual understanding and respect, and it’s business. And so we helped that community get involved in tourism, helped them understand how to write rates, help them marketing, and so on. And that became sort of the working model for…
indigenous communities in Guyana get involved in tourism, taking the model that that community developed, of which we were involved to some extent in that. So now a lot of the trips that we do are staying in lodges owned by indigenous communities or they’re working in lodges. That’s a really important element when you come to Guyana that it’s not just going into the rainforest, it’s going with indigenous guides. It’s their supermarket, it’s their hardware store.
you’re learning about it and you’re bringing real benefits to these communities. And most of the communities involved in tourism also have a conservation project which has come about perhaps in parallel with tourism, often funded by tourism. So one community for example, they do research on Black Cayman. So was started by an American who lived there for a couple of years doing this research on Black Cayman. It’s a really good healthy population on the river there but they want to understand them better.
the conflict between man and animal and so on. So this community continued with the research, but eventually the funding dried up. Now tourists can go out with them in a company boat, they capture an animal, then the tourists can be involved in measuring, weighing, microchipping the animal that’s being fed into a research project. Now it’s through that tourism that that research can continue. It’s fully funded now through tourism. The community also then said, okay, we…
Tony (01:17:51.099)
noticing one particular species of turtles that population is dropping drastically. That’s because traditionally they’d go out during the nesting season, dig up the nests and take the eggs. So they said, what we’re going to do, go out and dig up the nests, but then we’re going to incubate them in the lodge. Then when they hatch, we put them in a pond for a year, then we release them. So at a year old, they’re much more likely to survive. They’re not just fish bait. And they then created a turtle festival when they release the turtles, they invite surrounding communities to come, talk to them about conservation.
So they’re seeing the total population coming back. And again, as a tourist, you can be involved and see that. So as a tourist coming, not only are having a holiday and seeing interesting things, your money is staying in communities and helping them doing meaningful things. So Guyana, as a country, has one of the largest standing random products in the world. We’re all told we should be offsetting our carbon footprint.
if you plant a sapling, how long it’s going to take to grow before it has a meaningful impact. Whereas keeping that standing forest standing, it’s already big trees. So by going and supporting communities who then don’t have to do any logging, because they’ve got an income, you’re keeping that forest standing so that the lungs of the earth. And in fact, Guyana as a country has what’s called the low carbon development strategy, which is the government’s scheme.
Jason Elkins (01:18:54.786)
Mm-hmm.
Tony (01:19:13.838)
where they sell basically standing forest. So countries like Norway, for example, have put in 250 million over 10 years or something to keep standing forest. Hess, which is an oil company, because Galhona is now a petro state. So Hess, for example, are putting 750 million over a number of years to keep that standing forest.
Jason Elkins (01:19:35.95)
to buy the standing forests so they’re not logged is what I’m hearing you say.
Tony (01:19:40.472)
Yep, basically, yep. You don’t log this. Instead of logging…
Jason Elkins (01:19:43.886)
Instead of instead of instead of logging, but also a company like has could go out and pay a bunch of money to plant trees. They’re just being smarter about it and saying, let’s instead of trying to plant more trees, let’s just save some of the big trees we have. Is that right? Kind of. Yeah.
Tony (01:20:02.203)
Yeah, no, exactly. the ecology of the rainforest is if you cut down rainforest, can never grow the same because the plants underneath that canopy need that environment. If you clear the canopy, the same trees won’t grow back. So keeping that rainforest, that rainforest is you have to do that. You can’t just go and plant other trees because it won’t be the same. The species that depend upon and won’t have the right habitat. The other thing is that
Jason Elkins (01:20:26.658)
That makes sense.
Tony (01:20:31.322)
15 % of that money that’s coming from HES for example goes immediately to indigenous communities. So as a community they can apply. So we want to create this agriculture project or many of want to get involved in tourism. So their money can be used to create incomes in the community because they’re often isolated. There’s no cash economy there. It’s all subsistence farming and hunting. But now you can create income because you still got to buy school books for your kids and you want to have a generator or a solar light and things like that. So
As a country, think it’s a fairly unique model where keep the forest standing. The rest of world needs, you you need these lungs of the earth. Help us keep it standing rather than just planting. mean, not to say you shouldn’t plant, but keep the rainforest standing and it benefits communities. So when you’re coming to Guyana, there’s all these things that are happening as well. So Guyana is now the fastest growing economy in the world because it is an oil state now.
All of us offshore, you see very little onshore. But the money’s going into infrastructure, so new roads, brand new bridge across the river, schools, hospitals. So a lot of good things happening. So it’s really a buzz at the moment.
Jason Elkins (01:21:41.166)
Right. I heard you mention, I heard you mention a couple of times, it’s a petrol state now. So is that just because they weren’t developing it, they hadn’t discovered it? What caused the big shift to all of a sudden now it’s a petrol state?
Tony (01:21:59.419)
Yeah, so since the 90s. Yeah, so even back in the 90s, I know there was people in Guyana looking, they were looking inshore. Eventually they went offshore. So this is happening. I think it’s about 200 kilometers offshore. So Exxon are the biggest player there. They’ve got Total coming in and they just keep discovering more more oil. So they started drilling in, I think it was December 2019. So it’s only five years into it.
Jason Elkins (01:22:01.175)
I just don’t even know what that means, to be honest with you.
Tony (01:22:30.758)
So fairly new. So Guyana was the second poorest country in the hemisphere after Haiti. Now it’s quickly becoming one of the wealthier countries. So before it was all extractive and agricultural industries, rice, sugar, gold, bauxite, things like that. now oil has taken over. But also the government, the plan is to use that money to make, they’re saying…
Jason Elkins (01:22:49.41)
Lumber probably. Yeah.
Tony (01:22:59.514)
Oil’s not going be there forever. It’s falling out of favor and it’s a finite resource. So we have to create other industries. We have to make sure we have good agricultural businesses. They’re creating a new city called Silica City, which is going to be like a smart city type thing. So using the money to create businesses and business models that when the oil runs out.
Jason Elkins (01:23:00.578)
you
Tony (01:23:27.674)
president says, for example, we want to be a center of excellence for medical. So people will come to Guyana to get trained in the medical fields, for example. So quite forward thinking and creating a future for the country so that when oil is gone, there’s other businesses that are well developed and at a world class level. it’s a very interesting time and a great change from when I first started working in Guyana where
Everything was quite simple and basic now to a bustling city. Once you get to the interior, it’s like it always was. It’s just untouched, but in the city so much happening. So it means there’s a lot of infrastructure coming in place, airlines coming in that were never interested in Guyana before. So it’s opened up a lot.
Jason Elkins (01:24:06.382)
you
Jason Elkins (01:24:15.63)
me and maybe this next question maybe in a way you’ve already kind of answered it in just this recent part of the conversation. But the last thing I wanted to ask is for the typical tourists that’s never been they show up there. What’s the most common? Oh, I’m really surprised by X or I didn’t know why what’s the big surprise that people tend to mention when they get there or or shortly after they leave?
Tony (01:24:45.018)
Yeah, so people, know, if they’ve done a little research, they know there’s lots of rainforest and wildlife. They’re expecting that. Perhaps not the experience they get with the indigenous communities, how meaningful that can be. Also, they don’t really understand the history of Guyana and the ethnic makeup. So because of slavery and then after that, indentured laborers. you had mainly Africans as slaves. Indentured laborers came from India, Portugal and China.
So today, Guyana is roughly about 51 % Indo-Guyanese, about 42 % Afro-Guyanese, and small percentage of Chinese, Portuguese, indigenous people. So the makeup of the country is very dissimilar from most of Latin America, which are Spanish and Portuguese. The Guyanas, in terms of Guyana, are known as French Guiana. They’re different from the rest, and they feel very under-Latin.
often what surprised people, you know, they get to Georgetown and the food is not what they expected because it has all these influences that they weren’t expecting. And also Guyana makes amazing rum, the best rum in the world, Aldurado. So there’s lots of little things that didn’t expect. A lot of people expect there’s gonna be Spanish speaking probably and it’s English. mean, generally they know that before they arrive, but it’s.
And that’s a strong selling point for us, particularly to the North American market.
Jason Elkins (01:26:15.842)
I suspect there it’s surprising, you know, as being from the States and I’ve dealt with a lot of Americans both in the tourism business, but also just through life in general. And there’s a pretty good and I’m not knocking anybody but but I think Americans maybe are a little ice when I say Americans, I recognize that that’s South America, North America. So let me rephrase that and say, people from the US maybe are less likely to travel to other countries that don’t speak English, you know,
because it’s just the thing. you’re Austrian, you probably have no problem traveling to a place that speaks a different language because you probably did that five times before you were 18. Where at the US, it’s like, that can be a challenge. So I suspect that’s a big… was when I was in Belize, being the only English speaking country in Central America. It was kind of the same thing. We had similar things. People show up and…
know we’re at a lodge 30 miles offshore and they would walk into the bar and I’d say you know we’d like some guacamole tonight. like well we’re 30 miles from the market and they’re out of season there’s no avocados in Belize like well how can that be isn’t this just like Mexico? No it’s not so anyway Tony fascinating conversation
love to love to do it with you again sometime and just go even deeper in some stuff, but really appreciate you taking time out of your day to come in and share with the Big World Made Small audience kind of a little bit about your story. And I’m sure I trust it inspired some people to either take some career advice from what we discussed or to book a trip to Guyana. So the link to your website is going to be in the show notes. And I definitely encourage people to click on that link and reach out to you.
Tony (01:28:03.035)
Yeah.
Jason Elkins (01:28:10.574)
Tony, thank you very much, I appreciate it. It fun conversation. All right, we’ll chat with you soon. Bye-bye.
Tony (01:28:11.3)
Yeah, great. Thanks, Jason. Thank you. Thanks, bye.
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