Dr Winford James
Do not think for one moment, Tobagonian Child, that the previous two columns were not meant for you. Max Albert and I cannot think of anybody else more important than you to take action on the ideas and proposals presented therein. They are for everyone – the people of Tobago and Trinidad, the Government of the country, and most important of all, the House of Assembly and you, Cherished Child. You and your futures.
In the articles so far, we examined the constitutional foundations of autonomy and its practical application, and we showed why a Memorandum of Understanding cannot be the route through which Tobago secures control over Town and Country Planning. We also addressed the logic of the Sixth and Seventh Schedules and the structural framework within which Tobago’s authority is to be understood.
We further signalled that, where necessary, the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) may arise. That is a matter to which we will return in due course. But for the purposes of this article, Attentive Child, we turn to a different, but no less important, question: the role of evidence.
It is unarguable that autonomy, if it is to be meaningful, must be exercised – not only in principle but in practice. And practice, in modern governance, is driven by data. Decisions about land use, infrastructure, housing, and tourism development cannot be made on instinct or sentiment. They must be grounded in measurable realities. It is for this reason that statistics matter.
The figures referenced in this discussion are derived from the records of the Central Statistical Office, the Caribbean Tourism Organization and Tobago’s own Department of Tourism. They are not for decoration. They are essential. They tell us where Tobago stands, what scale of development lies ahead, and why control over TCP has now become an economic imperative. The data points in one direction. Tobago currently operates with a room stock estimated in the range of 4,000 to 6,000 units. This includes hotels, guesthouses, and other forms of short-term rental. Under present conditions, that capacity supports only a modest level of stayover tourism.
But the trajectory has changed, Quizzical Child! With the expansion of airport infrastructure and the clear ambition to increase the number of international arrivals, we must now plan for a much higher level of visitor throughput. Even a moderate increase to approximately 500,000 stayover visitors annually would require room stock in the region of 12,000 to 15,000 units. A more ambitious trajectory, aligned with the long-term capacity of the airport, would push that requirement beyond 20,000 rooms.
These are not marginal adjustments, Thoughtful Child. They represent a restructuring of Tobago’s economic base. At the same time, Tobago faces an equally urgent domestic demand. Families require land for housing. Communities require space for expansion. Generational continuity depends on the ability of Tobagonians to build, develop, and remain within their own villages.
Tourism expansion and domestic housing must be addressed together. They cannot be managed in isolation. They must be coordinated. And coordination requires control. That is the point at which TCP moves from administrative detail to economic necessity. A system in which applications are processed in Tobago but the final decisions are made elsewhere cannot respond to the scale or speed now required. It cannot balance competing land uses. It cannot integrate housing policy with tourism development. And it cannot provide the certainty required for investment at the levels now contemplated.
Worried Child, the consequence is not theory. It is delay. It is lost investment. It is the diversion of capital to more responsive jurisdictions.
The regional context now matters more than ever. Guyana is not waiting. It is building out aviation infrastructure, opening branded hotels, and publicly aligning investment incentives with tourism and broader development.
Barbados is not waiting. It has recorded more than 729,000 long-stay visitors and is pairing that performance with explicit tourism-development incentives and new hotel openings.
Grenada is not waiting. It is actively presenting tourism and hospitality as one of its fastest-growing investment spaces.
And Venezuela, however uncertain its path may remain, is still being discussed in terms of renewed tourism planning and future opportunity.
Investors do not wait on constitutional hesitation. They go where approvals are faster, rules are clearer, and governments align land, infrastructure, and incentives in real time.
In this context, the statistics do more than inform policy. They expose vulnerability. They show that Tobago is not merely deciding how to grow. It is deciding whether growth will occur here at all, or whether serious opportunities will migrate elsewhere while Tobago remains trapped in administrative delay.
Which brings us back to the central issue. If Tobago is to expand its room stock, accommodate its people, and realise the potential of its infrastructure, it must possess the authority to make final, coherent, and timely decisions about land use. That authority cannot be partial. It cannot be conditional. And it cannot be subject to external approval in practice. Autonomy, properly understood, demands nothing less.
Learning Child, the question, therefore, is not whether Tobago needs development. It is whether Tobago has the authority to plan, approve, and execute that development in a manner consistent with its own realities and aspirations. The statistics and the law point us to answers to that question, but the neocolonial yoke remains notwithstanding Acts 37 of 80 and 40 of 96 and “political friendship”.
You’ve got to put your mouth in the matter, Tobagonian Child.
Dr Winford James is a retired UWI lecturer who has been analysing issues in education, language, development and politics in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean on radio and TV since the 1970s.
He has also written thousands of columns for all major newspapers in the country.
