Mar­tin George

Based up­on the flood of re­spons­es I have re­ceived from all cor­ners of the globe to my ar­ti­cle last week on the de­struc­tion of To­ba­go, it is clear that there are many, many peo­ple out there who are deeply con­cerned as to what is hap­pen­ing to To­ba­go and most of them are glad that I have start­ed to voice and ar­tic­u­late their con­cerns.

The Min­is­ter for To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment, Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin, al­so voiced her con­cerns when she said on Thurs­day that she is deeply con­cerned about crime in To­ba­go. "We are in­deed sor­ry that this scourge is be­com­ing so ap­par­ent in To­ba­go, a place where we use to have so much peace," she said. Now this is an­oth­er as­pect in which the pow­ers that be have failed To­ba­go and To­bag­o­ni­ans; they have failed to ef­fec­tive­ly pre­serve and main­tain one of the ma­jor sell­ing points that To­ba­go has had go­ing for it in the past–its safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and seren­i­ty.?

Imag­ine the irony and in­deed "farse­ness" of some callers to the guest house of a friend of mine in To­ba­go, where peo­ple from Trinidad have been call­ing about ac­com­mo­da­tion and then go­ing on to say that they are wor­ried for their safe­ty in To­ba­go be­cause they are read­ing about so many crimes oc­cur­ring there. Now while they are in­deed "farse" to be com­plain­ing about crime in To­ba­go, their con­cerns are nonethe­less valid be­cause of what peo­ple at the THA have failed to recog­nise and ac­cept over the years, is that for most Trinida­di­ans, To­ba­go rep­re­sents the ide­al quick get­away from the stress, hor­rors and crime of Trinidad.

To­ba­go is sup­posed to be a place where they could come over, kick back, re­lax and just en­joy some peace, tran­quil­i­ty and seren­i­ty, so from that per­spec­tive they are in­deed ful­ly with­in their rights to en­quire in­to and be con­cerned about crime in To­ba­go. What's the point of try­ing to get away from the stress of a crime-rid­den place to be go­ing on a va­ca­tion where you al­so have to be wor­ried about crime there too?

Why can't we learn and un­der­stand these ba­sic con­cepts? Look at Mex­i­co, one of the most vi­o­lent, mur­der­ous places on the plan­et, where drug car­tels rule the roost and kid­nap­pings are the or­der of the day. Look at how they have still man­aged to carve out their tourist spots along the Mex­i­can Riv­iera and make them safe, se­cure, at­trac­tive to the point where you have some­times four and five cruise ships in port on any giv­en day.

If the mur­der cap­i­tal of the world can man­age to keep crime away from their tourists why can't we man­age a lit­tle piece of rock in the sea called To­ba­go? Look at Ja­maica, the crime cap­i­tal of the Caribbean, look at how safe you feel par­ty­ing in Mon­tego Bay, raft­ing down Dunns Riv­er Falls or just kick­ing back in Ocho Rios? Of course, you would not dare ven­ture down­town in New Kingston af­ter dark nor would you go look up your friends or rel­a­tives liv­ing in Tivoli Gar­dens or in the parish­es of St Cather­ine's or St Ann's; but if you stick to the tried and test­ed tourist ar­eas you gen­er­al­ly don't feel like you're in the most vi­o­lent place in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean.

At the end of the day it is a ques­tion of how you har­ness and man­age your re­sources, tal­ent and your prod­uct. I have said for years that the folks at the THA and the TDC do not have a clue as to what tourism is all about and the cur­rent tourism min­is­ter is yet to dis­tin­guish him­self in this re­gard with the lat­est hare-brained scheme be­ing to mar­ket Paramin as a tourism des­ti­na­tion.

I have said be­fore and I will say it again for those who did not lis­ten the first time, my de­f­i­n­i­tion of tourism is this:

"Tourism is a means of find­ing ways to pleas­ant­ly and vol­un­tar­i­ly sep­a­rate a vis­i­tor from his mon­ey while mak­ing him feel like he's the king of the world." This is what it is all about. What is there to sell in Paramin? How are you go­ing to make mon­ey from this when the nec­es­sary in­fra­struc­ture and mech­a­nisms are not in place? Are tourists go­ing to leave Swe­den or Switzer­land to make the dan­ger­ous jour­ney up to Paramin just to buy a bun­dle of chive or a sprig of pars­ley? What rub­bish is this?

Much more sen­si­ble has been Min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, who has ad­vo­cat­ed that as a start To­ba­go should stop hav­ing Car­ni­val at the same time as Trinidad. Now this is some­thing I have been say­ing for some time and it is tru­ly a bril­liant sug­ges­tion from Gyp­sy. There is so much mer­it and val­ue in the sug­ges­tion be­cause it can put out of their mis­ery, the piti­ful lit­tle bands that strag­gle around Scar­bor­ough try­ing to com­pete with the big, bright, flashy mas in Port-of-Spain.

In fact, most To­bag­o­ni­ans who re­al­ly want to play mas head off to play with the big bands in Trinidad. Most Trinida­di­ans and oth­er vis­i­tors who come to To­ba­go over the Car­ni­val week­end come for the very rea­son of try­ing to get away from Car­ni­val and in­stead have their peace, tran­quil­i­ty, and re­lax­ation dis­turbed but some lit­tle rag-tag bands strug­gling to make up 100 mem­bers and where the biggest band in To­ba­go on a Car­ni­val Tues­day is a mud band.

For­get this pre­tence and cha­rade of a To­ba­go Car­ni­val at a com­pet­ing time with Trinidad. Re­vive in­stead the To­ba­go Fest which used to be held in Sep­tem­ber where thou­sands of vis­i­tors used to flood To­ba­go for what was es­sen­tial­ly Car­ni­val in Sep­tem­ber. You have a mas­sive mar­ket for this be­cause if you sched­ule it for some­time near the end of Sep­tem­ber or close to the Re­pub­lic Day hol­i­day, if it's a long week­end, you could even get some of the big bands from Trinidad com­ing across and of­fer­ing dras­ti­cal­ly re­duced prices on their cos­tumes and you can have peo­ple flock­ing over for what would es­sen­tial­ly be To­ba­go's Car­ni­val.

This was an idea be­ing de­vel­oped when the present THA ad­min­is­tra­tion in their wis­dom or lack there­of sum­mar­i­ly killed it and left it still­born. It can be re­vived, prop­er­ly man­aged and reg­u­lat­ed to cre­ate a won­der­ful pros­per­ous fes­ti­val which would be­come to be unique­ly known as To­ba­go's Car­ni­val.