Shal­iza?Has­sanali

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) last week held pre­lim­i­nary talks with Gor­don 'Butch' Stew­art–founder and chair­man of San­dals Re­sorts–about the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a 750-room ho­tel on the is­land.

Con­fir­ma­tion came of progress to­wards the project from sec­re­tary of Tourism and Trans­porta­tion in the THA Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine.

She said con­struc­tion of the ho­tel was in keep­ing with the THA's tourism thrust.

"There are ben­e­fits to be de­rived with San­dals com­ing to To­ba­go. We ex­pect more flights, recog­ni­tion and tourists for To­ba­go. That in it­self will bring more busi­ness for us."

Her com­ments came three days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that To­ba­go was ear­marked for a 750-room San­dals Re­sort, as Gov­ern­ment seeks to make the is­land punch hard­er as a tourism des­ti­na­tion. The aim is to get more rev­enue, for­eign ex­change and jobs.

This project, Row­ley said, would take To­ba­go out of the eco­nom­ic gloom it was fac­ing.

David­son-Ce­les­tine said the as­sem­bly sup­port­ed the move by the PM.

San­dals has opened its doors in An­tigua, the Ba­hamas, Grena­da, Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, St Lu­cia and Turks and Caicos.

David­son-Ce­les­tine said THA's Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don has held sev­er­al meet­ings with a view to un­der­stand­ing what will be re­quired in terms of the lev­el of in­vest­ment that will be made.

"The dis­cus­sions are con­tin­u­ing. It is still in its ear­ly stages."

She said Stew­art was very in­ter­est­ed in es­tab­lish­ing his brand in To­ba­go.

"He (came) to To­ba­go on two or three oc­ca­sions be­fore. We had a one-on-one dis­cus­sion with him as re­cent­ly as last week. All of us are ex­cit­ed by the pos­si­bil­i­ty of this project."

Greater air­lift

David­son-Ce­les­tine said Stew­art did not in­di­cate how much he would in­vest, since talks were still at a pre­lim­i­nary stage.

"We be­lieve the in­vest­ment be­ing made by Stew­art is need­ed to help the is­land's tourism sec­tor to grow and de­vel­op. We re­al­ly wel­come this part­ner­ship."

A project of this na­ture, David­son-Ce­les­tine said, can take about 24 months from start to fin­ish.

Ques­tioned what would be the best lo­ca­tion for the ho­tel, David­son-Ce­les­tine said the west end of To­ba­go, which is with­in close prox­im­i­ty to the beach­es and air­port.

She ex­pects a pos­i­tive spin­off in the form of in­creased flights to To­ba­go, not­ing that since San­dals opened busi­ness­es in Bar­ba­dos and Grena­da, flights by Amer­i­can Air­lines have in­creased.

These two Caribbean coun­tries had one or two flights per week by Amer­i­can Air­lines, David­son-Ce­les­tine said, and "now they have dai­ly flights."

In­ter­na­tion­al tourist ar­rivals have "sky­rock­et­ed," she claimed.

How­ev­er, the ANR Robin­son Air­port is not large enough to ac­com­mo­date two or three air­craft si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly on the ground, a short­com­ing David­son-Ce­les­tine ac­knowl­edges. It al­so lacks lounge fa­cil­i­ties for high­er-class trav­ellers.

"If you are talk­ing about bring­ing high-end guests to the is­land there is a re­quire­ment that you must have fa­cil­i­ties for those who are trav­el­ling in busi­ness class and the re­wards pro­gramme. If you look at all air­ports across the Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, there is a hos­pi­tal­i­ty area for those kinds of peo­ple who trav­el in those class­es. So we need that."

She said the es­tab­lish­ment of a fer­ry port from Trinidad to To­ba­go would al­so open up op­por­tu­ni­ties for the is­land.

Com­pe­ti­tion skep­ti­cal

One crit­i­cism that San­dals has faced over its all-in­clu­sive mod­el is that it keeps all busi­ness with­in its walls, and does not bring the rest of the is­land in­to the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence. Gen­er­al man­ag­er of Kari­wak Vil­lage, Al­lan Clo­vis, is wor­ried that the To­ba­go San­dals would be­come an "en­clave."

"That might be a mod­el for oth­er coun­tries. But we as a peo­ple have not pro­mot­ed that sort of thing," Clo­vis said.

And he wants to know whose mon­ey is be­ing risked.

"How much mon­ey is Stew­art putting to­wards this ven­ture? They are not telling us the whole sto­ry. I am not tak­ing away from the idea nor am I against the idea, but while Stew­art is bring­ing his ex­per­tise and brand to To­ba­go, who is tak­ing the in­vest­ment risk?"

De­spite the com­pe­ti­tion that San­dals would pro­vide, gen­er­al man­ag­er of Mag­dale­na Grand Beach Re­sort, Christo­pher Forbes, de­scribed it as "a good ini­tia­tive."

"To­ba­go will have a brand­ed com­pa­ny on the is­land, as well as we would have more air­lift com­ing di­rect­ly here which is what we want. This would sure­ly boost tourism. It's a step in the right di­rec­tion," Forbes said.

Would Mag­dale­na Grand lose busi­ness to San­dals? "Ab­solute­ly not," Forbes said.

Op­po­si­tion warns against give­away

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal called on Gov­ern­ment to say what is the cur­rent vis­i­tors' ar­rival fig­ure for To­ba­go.

Mooni­lal said while it was good for To­ba­go to ben­e­fit from a new ho­tel "my in­for­ma­tion is that in the last ten years the ar­rival trend­line does not sup­port such an am­bi­tious project."

Like Clo­vis, Mooni­lal al­so ques­tioned how much mon­ey San­dals will be in­ject­ing in­to this part­ner­ship.

"I hope the Gov­ern­ment will be trans­par­ent with the Ho­tel Man­age­ment Agree­ment (HMA) and not give away the coun­try, as was done un­der for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. It was the last PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion who had to rene­go­ti­ate some el­e­ments of the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel HMA to en­sure that prof­its owed to the peo­ple of T&T for over five years could be re­alised."