CASAN­DRA THOMP­SON�FORBES

Min­is­ter of Tourism Stephen Cadiz has pledged his full sup­port for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly in the re­vival of To­ba­go's tourism sec­tor.He was speak­ing at Stone Haven Vil­las on Tues­day, dur­ing the launch of an In­sti­tu­tion­al Strength­en­ing, Ca­pac­i­ty Build­ing and Strate­gic Plan­ning pro­gramme for stake­hold­ers. Cadiz said To­ba­go's con­tri­bu­tion formed a ma­jor part of the tourism thrust:

"To­ba­go forms a ma­jor part of the tourism in­dus­try of T&T and there­fore, there is one word for it and that is to part­ner with all of us work­ing and all of us on the same page, all of us singing from the same hymn­book, and that is, ladies and gen­tle­men, to make us the pre­mier lo­ca­tion," he said.

Sec­re­tary for Tourism and Trans­porta­tion in the THA Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine said To­ba­go is well po­si­tioned for suc­cess, and in light of creep­ing in­creas­es of tourist ar­rivals, she re­mains op­ti­mistic as sta­tis­tics world­wide have shown pos­i­tive trends."To­ba­go's tourism is ral­ly­ing and our sta­tis­tics show that there are in­creas­es in ar­rivals; as a mat­ter of fact ar­rivals have in­creased for the pe­ri­od 2012 by about two per cent, which com­pares favourably with that of the Caribbean at five per cent and of the world at four per cent," she said.

All stake­hold­ers in the tourism sec­tor were en­cour­aged to max­imise the new phase of tourism for To­ba­go.