Rashan­da Mc Ken­na

The Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC) has tak­en a proac­tive stance in pro­mot­ing T&T, aimed at in­creas­ing tourism vis­i­tors. This busi­ness in­cen­tive was un­veiled as a pri­ma­ry man­date of the Tourism Min­istry, at a break­fast meet­ing held in the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) Suite of the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, yes­ter­day. Ra­jiv Shandilya, chair­man of the TDC said the cre­ation of sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for tourism, eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of the ben­e­fits of tourism and col­lab­o­ra­tion with tourism stake­hold­ers and pri­vate sec­tor part­ners are key fac­tors in off­set­ting this pri­or­i­ty.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the TDC San­dra Perkins said one of TDC's man­date is to de­vel­op a tourism cap­i­tal and brand Trinidad and To­ba­go lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, mak­ing it the des­ti­na­tion of choice for the wider in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ence. Perkins in­di­cat­ed that while Car­ni­val is the rea­son T&T has been able to main­tain a favourable po­si­tion in the world fes­ti­val niche mar­ket, there will be a broad­er fo­cus for the Tourism Min­istry.

"We are plan­ning be­yond Car­ni­val. Cul­ture is what makes a coun­try unique and our mul­ti eth­nic and mul­ti cul­tur­al com­po­si­tion is a ma­jor sell­ing point." The TDC has en­gaged mar­ket­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives in six mar­kets-Unit­ed King­dom, the Unit­ed States, Cana­da, Scan­di­navia, Ger­many and In­dia. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and jour­nal­ists from those mar­kets were present at the event to ex­pe­ri­ence Car­ni­val first hand.

Perkins said TDC launched a num­ber of pub­lic sen­si­ti­sa­tion ini­tia­tives, which will en­gage schools to make chil­dren aware of what tourism can do for them as a ca­reer. Min­is­ter of Tourism Dr Rup­pert Grif­fith said T&T was an emerg­ing tourism na­tion.

"We want Trinidad to be­come a house­hold name through­out the world." The Min­istry of Tourism is mar­ket­ing on all so­cial net­works and with T&T em­bassies abroad."

He point­ed to new ac­tiv­i­ties com­ing on stream to hoard at­ten­tion for T&T. One ex­am­ple is the up­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al cui­sine com­pe­ti­tion, to be held in this coun­try in late No­vem­ber, where the world culi­nary cham­pi­on will be crowned. "While we are blessed with oil and gas, all those re­sources are fi­nite. We have to di­ver­si­fy our econ­o­my in or­der to sus­tain our­selves eco­nom­i­cal­ly. What bet­ter way to do that by cul­ti­vat­ing the po­ten­tial of our nat­ur­al beau­ty."

It seems the goal is not as far fetched as last year Trinidad and To­ba­go was vot­ed the des­ti­na­tion of choice for 2012 by 27 Eu­ro­pean Coun­tries. "Our mis­sion is to be­come the first choice tourism des­ti­na­tion of the world," said Grif­fith.