The Min­istry of Tourism has an­nounced that new se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures are to be im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure the safe­ty of all tourists, in­clud­ing cruise pas­sen­gers, who vis­it this coun­try.

It says that agree­ment on the mea­sures was reached dur­ing a meet­ing on Mon­day in­volv­ing the Min­is­ter of Tourism, Ran­dall Mitchell, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and the Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith.

The closed-door meet­ing, which took place at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was re­quest­ed by Min­is­ter Mitchell fol­low­ing the Box­ing Day in­jury and rob­bery of UK tourist, 72-year-old Sal­ly Wil­son while she was sight-see­ing along the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah with her hus­band Michael.

They came to Port-of-Spain that day among a 4,363 pas­sen­ger ca­pac­i­ty MSC Preziosa cruise line.

Wil­son has sub­se­quent­ly thanked all those who as­sist­ed her in what she de­scribed as the “trau­mat­ic” in­ci­dent.

A state­ment by the min­istry says that Mitchell com­mend­ed the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly the po­lice for en­sur­ing “a large­ly un­blem­ished record where the se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty of cruise pas­sen­gers were con­cerned.”

Mitchell said the meet­ing agreed that “one rob­bery was one too many,” and agreed that “plan­ning and dis­cus­sions be­tween the cruise of­fi­cers at the min­istry and the po­lice will con­tin­ue”.

He said that will be done “with a view to elim­i­nat­ing short­com­ings or po­ten­tial short­com­ings in the se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments”.

Ac­cord­ing to Mitchell, Mon­day’s meet­ing al­so looked at the need for an ef­fi­cient, pleas­ant ex­pe­ri­ence by vis­i­tors when be­ing processed by im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers at the air­port dur­ing what promis­es to be a hec­tic Car­ni­val sea­son.