Melis­sa Doughty

The 2012 Tourism Park themed Mis­sion: Xpe­di­tion re­opened yes­ter­day at a cost of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $3 mil­lion. The park was launched at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, which rep­re­sents greater em­pha­sis be­ing placed by the Gov­ern­ment on eco­tourism and a new­ly-added Car­ni­val Vil­lage to show­case more of T&T's cul­ture giv­en the coun­try's up­com­ing 50th In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions.

Min­is­ter of Tourism Stephen Cadiz, who fell ill re­cent­ly in Mi­a­mi, was no­tably ab­sent. But the min­istry's com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist, Sher­ma Mitchell, said the min­is­ter was do­ing well. She said tests were be­ing done and that Cadiz should be back to work short­ly. Raye Sandy, act­ing per­ma­nent sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Tourism de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress on the min­is­ter's be­half.

Al­so present were act­ing CEO of the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC), Leon Lue Yat, and Car­ol Ann Birch­wood-James, a di­rec­tor of TDC who de­liv­ered the wel­com­ing re­marks. Thir­ty-three chil­dren from the St Mary's Home and 23 of the Cyril Ross were present to ex­plore the park. Ac­cord­ing to Sandy, the park is part of the min­istry's plans to de­vel­op the tourism in­dus­try in T&T.

"That is one of the com­par­a­tive ad­van­tages that we have. Sun and sand tourism has paci­fied right now. It is in a de­clin­ing kind of sales mode. Our ad­van­tages are eco, her­itage and that kind of thing," he said. The coun­try's rich bio­di­ver­si­ty and easy ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty make it a per­fect place from which to mar­ket and sell eco­tourism, he said. The tourism park has 17 booths with en­vi­ron­men­tal groups such as El Scor­ro Cen­tre for Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion, Tur­tle Vil­lage Trust and The Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre among oth­ers.

Gia Nar­i­nesingh, founder of the El Scor­ro Cen­tre for Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion, said she be­lieves that the park is a good way to be­gin ed­u­cat­ing the pub­lic on the im­por­tance of eco­tourism. She be­lieves T&T does not have a cul­ture which al­lows for the de­vel­op­ment of eco­tourism. This, she said, is a con­se­quence of the lack of ed­u­ca­tion which ex­ists among the gen­er­al pub­lic. Nar­i­nesingh, how­ev­er, ap­plaud­ed the min­istry, say­ing it was a start to ed­u­cat­ing the pub­lic.

Sandy has al­so said there will be a ma­jor thrust to­ward her­itage tourism. "Cab­i­net re­cent­ly ap­proved a her­itage com­mit­tee and they will meet on a reg­u­lar ba­sis. They are charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for rec­om­mend­ing a her­itage tourism plan. But we are wait­ing on that plan and com­ing out of it we will see how we move for­ward," Sandy said.

A Sug­ar Her­itage Vil­lage and Mu­se­um is be­ing es­tab­lished in Brechin Cas­tle, Cou­va, as part of the dri­ve to­ward her­itage tourism. Phase one has al­ready be­gun with the con­struc­tion of the vis­i­tor's cen­tre. The tourism park will run from Au­gust 10 to 19 and will be opened be­tween the hours of 10 am to 6 pm dai­ly. The park will "re­flect a jun­gle ad­ven­ture with caves, wa­ter fea­tures, wildlife repli­cas and live an­i­mals all along raised na­ture path." There will al­so be sto­ry­telling, per­for­mances of pa­tri­ot­ic songs, a play com­mem­o­rat­ing T&T's 50 years on In­de­pen­dence among oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties.