The at­ten­tion be­ing paid by the Min­is­ter of Tourism Stephen Cadiz to at­tract­ing in­ter­na­tion­al air­lines to fly new routes in­to To­ba­go is one very pos­i­tive el­e­ment of the out­reach by the Gov­ern­ment to re­sus­ci­tate tourism on the is­land.

For To­ba­go, tourism con­tin­ues to be the ma­jor em­ploy­er-that is, out­side di­rect gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ment. It is the ma­jor for­eign-ex­change earn­er and the in­dus­try with the most im­me­di­ate po­ten­tial to cre­ate sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment in­to the fu­ture.

It is in this con­text then, that the in­di­ca­tions of plans by the min­is­ter to se­cure the ser­vices of a yet-to-be-named Scan­di­na­vian air­line are piv­otal to re­sus­ci­tat­ing tourism in To­ba­go.

There have been ma­jor re­duc­tions in vis­i­tor ar­rivals in To­ba­go and in­deed all over the Caribbean over the last six years since the in­ter­na­tion­al re­ces­sion be­gan to af­fect in­comes and the abil­i­ty of peo­ple to trav­el as they once did.

In par­tic­u­lar, To­ba­go suf­fered con­sid­er­ably as sev­er­al Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, which have tra­di­tion­al­ly been the ma­jor source mar­kets for vis­i­tors to To­ba­go, went in­to debt crises. Po­ten­tial trav­ellers lost jobs, in­come and hence the where­with­al to trav­el abroad.

In ad­di­tion to con­tract­ing the ser­vices of the Scan­di­na­vian air­line, the tourism min­is­ter is al­so as­sur­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion of flights out of Eu­rope on Con­dor and Monarch. He is al­so in­volved in dis­cus­sions with West­Jet to fly in­to To­ba­go from Cana­da.

Cadiz is al­so seek­ing to con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions with Vir­gin At­lantic, which will now on­ly fly in­to To­ba­go dur­ing the win­ter months, as its pas­sen­ger load is not large enough for the air­line to fly to To­ba­go dur­ing sum­mer.

One oth­er el­e­ment of the good news from Cadiz is the in­cen­tive pack­age be­ing giv­en to To­ba­go hote­liers to re­fur­bish and up­grade their prop­er­ties, what­ev­er their size.

Vi­tal to the re­vival of tourism in To­ba­go is the ex­pan­sion of the tourism prod­uct on the is­land. Sand, sea and sun can no longer by them­selves com­pete against many oth­er tourism-savvy des­ti­na­tions in the Caribbean and as far away as the Mid­dle East. Cul­tur­al and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly-con­scious tourism and the in­volve­ment of peo­ple shar­ing with their vis­i­tors are ar­eas in­to which the prod­uct is ex­pand­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

At the same time, the bad rap To­ba­go has had over the last five years, with a few high-pro­file crimes against tourists, needs to be coun­tered quick­ly and de­ci­sive­ly.

It is un­for­tu­nate that tourism in To­ba­go has been al­lowed to suf­fer and de­cline for so long and to such an ex­tent be­fore re­ceiv­ing the at­ten­tion it needs.

An­oth­er change of per­spec­tive may still be need­ed.

Trinidad has of­ten fea­tured in plans to de­vel­op tourism in T&T, but the fact is that to this day, tourists dis­em­bark­ing from the oc­ca­sion­al cruise ship dock­ing in Port-of-Spain re­main rare, and are ob­jects of pity. The city and the is­land are not cut out for tourism. Apart from the odd eco-tourist who wants to go bird­watch­ing or the ex­pat re­turn­ing home for Car­ni­val, Trinidad has lit­tle to of­fer va­ca­tion­ing vis­i­tors. Mu­se­ums, beach­es, state­ly homes, his­tor­i­cal sites and safe, clean vis­i­tor sites are abysmal­ly lack­ing or few and far be­tween.

No amount of ad­ver­tis­ing can change those facts.

There are just not many op­tions for de­vel­op­ing a vi­brant in­dus­try in Trinidad where a cul­ture of poor ser­vice and the lack of the prop­er en­vi­ron­ment to be com­pet­i­tive in the sec­tor have made it dif­fi­cult to achieve suc­cess.

Luck­i­ly, Trinidad has many oth­er op­tions. Tourism-de­pen­dent To­ba­go does not.

In the cir­cum­stances, then, it makes more sense to fo­cus re­sources and en­er­gy on de­vel­op­ing To­ba­go's tourism.