CASAN­DRA THOMP­SON�FORBES

The To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce host­ed a sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the To­ba­go Tourism De­vel­op­ment Fund on Tues­day at the Mt Irvine Bay Ho­tel.The sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny fol­lowed five years of work to im­ple­ment the Debt Re­struc­tur­ing and Eco­nom­ic Stim­u­lus Plan, which was ap­proved by Cab­i­net in 2012.The plan was cre­at­ed to as­sist busi­ness­es in To­ba­go which had been af­fect­ed by the glob­al eco­nom­ic re­ces­sion.

Sec­re­tary for Tourism and Trans­porta­tion in the THA Tracey David­son-Ce­les­tine said a co-op­er­a­tive ap­proach was need­ed for tourism to be suc­cess­ful in To­ba­go."To­ba­go as a small des­ti­na­tion com­petes in a large and con­stant­ly ex­pand­ing mar­ket. As such, the suc­cess of this in­dus­try is heav­i­ly hinged on an ef­fec­tive part­ner­ship be­tween the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors, a part­ner­ship that con­sists of open di­a­logue and con­sul­ta­tion geared to­wards a con­sis­tent and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of this very sen­si­tive sec­tor of the econ­o­my" she said.

Min­is­ter for To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Dr Del­mon Bak­er said the tourism sec­tor in To­ba­go need­ed a boost as it was an im­por­tant el­e­ment in the is­land's econ­o­my."We must note that when we look at the num­bers tourism rep­re­sents 46 per cent of the is­land's GDP. In ad­di­tion, 50 per cent of the peo­ple who are em­ployed, are em­ployed in some way by this sec­tor."Tourism is as im­por­tant to To­ba­go, as en­er­gy is im­por­tant to Trinidad," he said.The stim­u­lus plan is a $150 mil­lion ini­tia­tive. The monies will be dis­bursed over three years, with $50 mil­lion be­ing utilised each year.Hote­liers are ex­pect­ed to meet spe­cif­ic cri­te­ria and mile­stones to qual­i­fy for fund­ing.