6 minute read
Interview - Roraima Group
CONNECTED COMMUNITY
Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Captain Gerry Gouveia Jr., Director of Roraima Group, about medevac flights, eco-projects, and investing in the local people.
By Izzy Moss
Roraima Group, a family-owned Guyanese tourism, hospitality, and travel-supply company, was established in 1992 by the husband-and-wife team of Captain Gerald and Captain Debra Gouveia. At the time, the domestic and regional charter airline operated out of the back room of the Gouveia’s house. Today, Roraima Group is still run by the Gouveia family, joined by the founders’ two sons, Captain Gerald Jr. (Gerry) and Captain Kevin Gouveia, and over 360 staff members.
As Roraima Group grew, the company evolved from flying charter aircraft in support of the mining industry to developing tourist destination products. “For example, with Kaieteur Falls here in Guyana, the largest single drop waterfall in the world at 741 feet, we do tourist flights over the waterfall as well as all of the major hinterland resorts,” says Captain Gerry Gouveia Jr., Director of Roraima Group. “The company also runs Guyana’s first eco-resort, Arrowpoint, which has been in operation for almost 15 years as a commercial entity located in the Amerindian village of Santa Aratack. It’s a private partnership with the indigenous community to develop a sustainable eco-resort in their reservation.”
ESSENTIAL SERVICES
Today, Roraima Group has 14 divisions, spanning a range of services across the aviation and travel industries. “Our operations range from private jet handling, airline ground handling, catering, aviation security,
two small boutique hotels, catering corporate events, eco-resorts, medical evacuation (medevac) operations, cargo, and passenger charter, as well as an aviation maintenance facility,” explains Capt. Gouveia. “Roraima Group are looking to expand all of our operations into a more regional perspective, and in the oil and gas sector, which is the newest industry in Guyana.”
“The medical evacuations here in Guyana are mostly for the hinterland communities that are in the dense Amazon jungle,” says Capt. Gouveia. “Road and river access may not always be available to them. We have a 24-hour service using our aircraft to medically evacuate these hinterland, indigenous peoples, or people in mining camps and anywhere else around the country. We bring them to Georgetown for medical care or to Trinidad or the US when necessary.”
Roraima Group are working to develop more advanced medevac search and rescue capabilities in Guyana. “Our aim is to develop a system that would mirror what you would find in New York, Toronto, or London,” explains Capt. Gouveia. “Right now, 90% of medevac is fixed-wing aircraft. The next step for us within the next few months is to introduce helicopters that can do medical evacuations. The second improvement we are looking to make is bring training for medical personnel in line with international standards. This includes specifically training paramedics and air paramedics on how to stabilize the patient, since the type of medicine given is different from what a doctor or an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) uses.”
NATURE RESORT
“Our Arrowpoint nature resort is one of our pilot projects in Guyana for ecotourism working alongside the community,” says Capt. Gouveia. “There has subsequently been a lot more eco-tourism products developed in Guyana. Our resort is the closest to the capital city and is easy to get to via a 30-minute boat ride from the nearby, Cheddi Jagan International Airport. We’re looking at countries like Colombia, Belize, and Costa Rica who have successfully accomplished eco-tourism on a mass scale, but in a sustainable way. The community local to Arrowpoint has grown and developed in tourism products, as well as their own other industries. Roraima Group was one of the first businesses that acted as a major development tool for that community. In fact, we are currently still the sponsor for the school and the computer lab in the village of Santa Mission, which is the main village in the Santa Aratak reservation.”
ECO TOURISM
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted missions into a village where there were a few outbreaks, bringing and distributing supplies,” says Capt. Gouveia.
“We work very closely with the community, which is why we want to increase tourism, which has always been underdeveloped in Guyana. Tourism is now starting to bud by leveraging the popularity that Guyana is receiving from the oil and gas industry. We are working to create one of the premier resort destinations in Guyana by upgrading and improving it. We are expecting a boom in our local tourism products, and we want to be able to expand this accordingly. Right now, we can only cater for about 100 people at a time.”
Roraima Group are looking for partners that can help them grow while maintaining an eco-friendly ethos. “We use 100% solar at the Arrowpoint resort, and we use the water from the creek that we pump into holding tanks,” explains Capt. Gouveia. “The leisure activities we have, kayaking, hiking, and mountain biking, are intended to convey full experience of what it’s like to be in the jungle, with added running water and electricity. From within the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce, we are pushing for a greener economy, and for more of our businesses to embrace solar power energy, not only from a sustainable perspective but from an economic perspective as well. The cost of solar energy and storage batteries is becoming a lot more affordable.”
INVESTING IN PEOPLE
Roraima Group have several educational options for future employees. “There are internship programs with the aircraft engineering school in Guyana, offering them paid internships for our aviation wing,” says Capt. Gouveia. “We offer internships with the Carnegie School of Home Economics (CSHE), offering them internships at our hotels and resorts. In the past, we have offered internships with the University of Guyana for their tourism students, although that came to an end with COVID-19. Now that we are coming out of the pandemic, we are going to be re-engaging the University to start putting interns back into our tourism products. A couple of the new projects that we are looking to undertake include the establishment of a culinary school in Guyana, along with sustainable projects such as using flights to find oil spills. Roraima Group is looking to develop our relationships with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and conservation entities to use our aircraft for that kind of work.”
“Being a family business, even though we have 360 members, we still treat everyone like a family,” says Capt. Gouveia. “The idea is that we want to keep that culture going, and as the different divisions grow, we want to continue to be the service providers of choice for oil and gas companies. We want to increase our presence in the medical evacuation field and the sustainable ecotourism fields. In the accommodation and catering side of things, we are looking to increase our facilities. Lastly, we are looking to develop better air logistics and travel solutions, including cargo auctions. In the near future, you should see Guyana become a major destination as tourism grows, with Roraima Group connecting the region through private travel as well as cargo.” c
