A new culinary festival has been added to Tobago's tourism calendar with the launch of the Caribbean Seafood Festival.It was held at the Magdalena Grand Beach Resort on Sunday by the Caribbean Seafood Community Organisation, a committee of young professional Tobagonians with similar interests.
Chairman and founder of the organisation, Michael Alexander, said the event was geared to promote Caribbean seafood cuisine holistically throughout the Caribbean with Tobago being the mecca of the festival.He said while his committee knew a lot of hard work was involved it was prepared for the challenge to take the festival worldwide.
He added: "What we intend to achieve is to design a festival that can promote the Caribbean as a product initially in Tobago from 2013 to 2015 and then we are looking to go up the Caribbean islands from 2016."Every two years from 2015 we intend to have this festival in Tobago. Our ultimate objective is to go global so that this festival would become the product to promote the Caribbean worldwide."
In her address at the event Secretary in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) for Community Development and Culture, Dr Denise Tso�afatt�Angus, applauded the young people for their efforts and wished them every success.She also called for other stakeholders to buy into the initiative to showcase their wide array of skills and talents.She added: "I am very happy to see the fisherfolk participating because they too have to see themselves involved in this experience.
"The persons within the craft areas need to see themselves involved in this experience, the persons within culture and who have cultural talents have to see themselves involved and you have to bring them all together in this unique experience."I am happy to see the presence of sports on the calendar of events too and therefore you really have a potpourri that can take you to success."The budget for the Caribbean Seafood Festival is $1.2 million.
