Competition And Cooperation Of Regional Tourism In Suriname

This research presents a comparative study of regional tourism in Wanica and Paramaribo. Therefore this competition and cooperation study was conducted using the Porter’s diamond model and the author classified the important activities in the tourism industry into four determinants and two factors according to the diamond model.While it is envisaged that Paramaribo has much more tourism resources as a natural advantage, the author found here the regional economic development imbalance between the southern district(Wanica) and the northern district(Paramaribo) pose a negative influence on the further development of the tourism industry in Wanica compared to Paramaribo.However, the intervention from the central government may be proven to be important influence to reverse such imbalance in Suriname, especially when the infrastructure are planned to be dramatically improved and preferences of the tourists are turning to unexplored landscape in the remote Suriname.Finally, the author highlighted there are some factors cannot be explained by Porter’s diamond model, i.e. the dangers of over-expansion of the tourism in Paramaribo and Wanica, and suggested tourism planning and coordination with other industries is important for a long term perspective view.