The Paramin Hills have been marked as the next al­ter­na­tive tourist des­ti­na­tion in Trinidad. The an­nounce­ment was made yes­ter­day by Tourism Min­is­ter Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith dur­ing a tour of the area. Grif­fith was ac­com­pa­nied by chair­man of the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC) Ernest Lit­tles and mem­bers of the Paramin De­vel­op­ment Com­mit­tee (PDC). Grif­fith said: "This area is rich in po­ten­tial, I would like to ask the com­mu­ni­ty to part­ner with the min­istry and TDC at this stage. "As a part of our pol­i­cy po­si­tion, we are ex­plor­ing a num­ber of al­ter­na­tive tourism lo­ca­tions and des­ti­na­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go. What we are try­ing to do is es­tab­lish ad­di­tion­al tourism des­ti­na­tions."

He said in the case of Paramin, tourism would cre­ate new forms of in­come gen­er­a­tion and it was there­fore vi­tal that the Paramin com­mu­ni­ty com­mits to the ini­tia­tive. Grif­fith added: "There is po­ten­tial for busi­ness for the com­mu­ni­ty, I would like to see this com­mu­ni­ty treat this very se­ri­ous­ly as a ca­reer op­tion." He said he want­ed Paramin to re­main "rus­tic" and not be­come over-de­vel­oped. He said Paramin would not on­ly be an eco-tourism des­ti­na­tion but al­so a cul­tur­al one. Grif­fith said: "The sky is the lim­it in terms of op­por­tu­ni­ties for the com­mu­ni­ty and I hope this group (PDC) will take this on board."

He said tourism ac­tiv­i­ties would in­clude hikes, trips to the se­clud­ed Saut Deau beach and tours to his­tor­i­cal and agri­cul­tur­al sites. Grif­fith said new forms of em­ploy­ment would in­clude tour guides, craft­mak­ers and food sell­ers. The Tourism Min­istry vis­it­ed Paramin af­ter the PDC re­quest­ed it (the min­istry) to con­sid­er the area as an al­ter­na­tive tourism des­ti­na­tion. Pres­i­dent of the PDC Thomas Sanoir said the min­istry was in­vit­ed to help the com­mit­tee to mar­ket and help de­vel­op their ideas.

He said the com­mit­tee al­so planned to or­gan­ise tours, where vis­i­tors would be picked up in Mar­aval and then tak­en in­to the hills. Sanoir said from there vis­i­tors could go on hikes through the for­est or down to the fa­mous Saut Deau beach, which is al­so home to a wa­ter­fall. (AL)