With San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al pulling out of To­ba­go all may not be lost for the is­land’s tourism sec­tor, as Cana­di­an-based Sun­wing Trav­el Group wants the Gov­ern­ment to in­vest in Tur­tle Beach Ho­tel which they re­cent­ly ac­quired.

The an­nounce­ment was made by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day dur­ing his first Con­ver­sa­tion with the Me­dia at Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s.

Last week, the PM met with Sun­wing’s CEO Stephen Hunter and oth­er ex­ec­u­tives of the air­line com­pa­ny where they dis­cussed Sun­wing’s hav­ing an in­ter­est in an in­creased pres­ence in To­ba­go, in­clud­ing an in­ter­est in State-owned Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort.

Sun­wing pro­vides di­rect flights from Toron­to to To­ba­go.

The air­line, which is the largest in­te­grat­ed trav­el com­pa­ny in North Amer­i­ca, re­cent­ly ac­quired a chain of Rex Re­sorts’ Caribbean ho­tels and is now the own­er of Tur­tle Beach Ho­tel in To­ba­go.

Guardian Me­dia asked Row­ley what plans his Gov­ern­ment has to im­prove To­ba­go’s tourism thrust with San­dals pulling out of the project.

Row­ley said Sun­wing was one in­vestor they were look­ing at.

Hav­ing ac­quired Tur­tle Beach Ho­tel, Row­ley said Sun­wing wants to up­grade the ho­tel to their stan­dard.

“They al­so think it does not have enough rooms. So they want to in­crease the num­ber of rooms...they want to up­grade it to a five-star ho­tel. They asked for Gov­ern­ment sup­port for that and we said yes.”

He said Sun­wing’s prospect was to build be­tween 200 to 300 rooms.

The PM opt­ed not to give de­tails as to when the up­grade will be­gin and the cost in­volved.

Row­ley said, how­ev­er, Sun­wing was faced with one prob­lem as “the cur­rent road be­tween Black­rock and Ply­mouth pass­es right in front of the ho­tel’s lob­by.”

Some peo­ple in To­ba­go, Row­ley said, took the po­si­tion that the road be­longs to them and “no­body must stop them from pass­ing there.”

He said this de­vel­op­ment, was not the la­goon, No Man’s Land or the man­grove.

“It is the use of a road that was built to con­nect Black­rock to Ply­mouth and to pre­vent traf­fic from pass­ing through a ho­tel if they use the land they have on the oth­er side,” he said.

The PM said this was a mat­ter for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to han­dle.

“We are go­ing to have some in­ter­est­ing days ahead. The Gov­ern­ment al­so has oth­er sites in To­ba­go,” he not­ed.

The PM said there were some pri­vate sec­tor sites they can utilise. “We are go­ing to en­cour­age peo­ple to in­vest in­to To­ba­go,” he said.­—Shal­iza Has­sanali