Sean Nero

Tourism Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz is sup­port­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly's (THA) call for state-owned Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL) to sched­ule di­rect flights to the is­land from dif­fer­ent ports in the re­gion. For­mer trans­port min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj al­lowed CAL's ex­ec­u­tive to ros­ter di­rect flights from Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al to Grena­da, Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica.

THA chief sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don in a Sun­day Guardian in­ter­view slammed Ma­haraj and CAL for this move, ac­cus­ing both par­ties of con­tribut­ing to the growth of oth­er tourist des­ti­na­tions re­gion­al­ly, while sti­fling To­ba­go's. Cadiz agrees that a bet­ter sched­ul­ing of di­rect re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al flights to the Arthur NR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port would be es­sen­tial to the is­land's tourism-based econ­o­my.

The min­is­ter said trav­ellers seek­ing out To­ba­go as a des­ti­na­tion were averse to the idea of dis­em­bark­ing at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al, then board­ing an­oth­er flight to the sis­ter isle. Mean­while, Lon­don main­tains that To­ba­go must be treat­ed as a sep­a­rate des­ti­na­tion from Trinidad, at least on the air bridge is­sue.

The op­er­a­tions of CAL is now the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of for­mer banker and new­ly ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my, Lar­ry Howai. Lon­don said, "We are very con­cerned that Caribbean Air­lines is pre­pared to give con­ces­sions to our com­peti­tors-Grena­da and Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica-and is not pre­pared to give to To­ba­go.

"What we re­al­ly need is a sit­u­a­tion where Caribbean Air­lines would sit down and dis­cuss with us be­ing able to have di­rect flights com­ing out of Eu­rope, com­ing out of Cana­da, com­ing out of the var­i­ous des­ti­na­tions to which they fly and they (are) not pre­pared to do that. "All their flights, they want to go to Trinidad and then come to To­ba­go, bear­ing in mind, of course, tourists don't like to change planes."

Ac­cord­ing to Lon­don, "It is not about T&T." He said it was about treat­ing To­ba­go as a sep­a­rate tourism des­ti­na­tion and "not op­er­at­ing on the premise that when you bring a flight to T&T, that To­ba­go is tak­en care of. That is un­sat­is­fac­to­ry". Cadiz said that To­ba­go, es­pe­cial­ly, has been a big bone of con­tention, "both the in­ter­na­tion­al flights and in ad­di­tion to the air bridge."

He said he had a meet­ing with the steer­ing com­mit­tee on tourism and some­thing has to be done about that. "We will be speak­ing with the Min­is­ter of Trans­port about the air bridge. I see Caribbean Air­lines is now un­der the purview of the Min­istry of Fi­nance. I'll be hav­ing talks with Caribbean Air­lines and or the Min­istry of Fi­nance to re­al­ly and tru­ly de­ter­mine how we are get­ting this thing to work.

"Even be­fore, in my pre­vi­ous po­si­tion, I was ask­ing how do I get peo­ple in­to the Mag­dale­na (Grand Beach Re­sort). We don't have that air­lift that we re­al­ly and tru­ly should have." But the air bridge dilem­ma might be where Cadiz and Lon­don's team ef­fort ends, as the min­is­ter is breath­ing new life in­to the now con­tro­ver­sial idea of stag­ing a sec­ond Car­ni­val in To­ba­go.

For­mer arts and mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters (now Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment) was in full sup­port of the idea, but clashed with Lon­don, who shut it down. Cadiz said, "A sec­ond Car­ni­val in To­ba­go would prob­a­bly work ex­treme­ly well for the To­ba­go econ­o­my.

The idea is a good one, con­sid­er­ing there is a pro­ject­ed slump in tourism ar­rivals from the is­land's core mar­ket, the Unit­ed King­dom and Eu­rope, dur­ing the third and fourth quar­ters of 2012, cit­ing the on­go­ing cri­sis in the Eu­ro-Zone. "Is the sec­ond Car­ni­val go­ing to be at­trac­tion for the for­eign tourists? Is the sec­ond Car­ni­val go­ing to be an at­trac­tion for the lo­cal tourists? Is the sec­ond Car­ni­val go­ing to be an at­trac­tion for re­turn­ing na­tion­als?

"We are try­ing to boost the econ­o­my in To­ba­go. The econ­o­my in To­ba­go is in trou­ble. We need to cre­ate dif­fer­ent at­trac­tions to get peo­ple in­to To­ba­go, for in­stance, To­ba­go Jazz." While Lon­don has ex­pressed cau­tious op­ti­mism about vis­i­tor ar­rivals to the is­land dur­ing the Au­gust (sum­mer) and win­ter busi­ness cy­cles, Nicholas Hard­wicke, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, pre­dicts a sharp de­cline in book­ings and trav­el from the Eu­rope/UK mar­ket to To­ba­go for the same pe­ri­od.

Hard­wicke said Her Majesty Queen Eliz­a­beth's Di­a­mond Ju­bilee and the UE­FA Eu­ro (foot­ball) 2012 gave To­ba­go's core vis­i­tors rea­sons to stay at home, and now they have the 2012 Olympic Games. He point­ed to on­go­ing fi­nan­cial trou­bles in Greece, Spain and Italy which were set to wors­en ar­rival num­bers for tourists aboard long-haul flights.

But Lon­don did not share that lev­el of skep­ti­cism. He said, "It will af­fect us, but the book­ings are not dis­as­trous. We can make up for it with book­ings com­ing out of the Unit­ed States and al­so com­ing out of East­ern Eu­rope. We are hop­ing that we are go­ing to get the air­lift, be­cause the whole thing is about air­lift. If you don't get the air­lift, then you're not go­ing to make it."

Cadiz, on the oth­er hand, was con­vinced that a sec­ond Car­ni­val could be the brain-cool­er cit­i­zens of those coun­tries need to come to To­ba­go. "It is high­ly like­ly that for two weeks dur­ing the third or fourth quar­ter of the year, that you have a lot of ac­tiv­i­ty go­ing on in To­ba­go. You know Tri­nis! When you have Point Fortin Bor­ough Day, they flock to Point Fortin. They flock to Ari­ma (Bor­ough Day)...all over the place. There is noth­ing wrong with that. Then you'll get re­turn­ing na­tion­als and you'll get some ac­tiv­i­ty from the non-na­tion­als.

"Some of the is­lands go through very, very slow pe­ri­ods. Some of the is­lands ac­tu­al­ly have ho­tels that close cer­tain months of the year, every year, be­cause it is not worth-while to stay open. They close and do main­te­nance. Can we keep the To­ba­go at­trac­tion open at all times? Again, that is some­thing we have to look at."