The di­ver­si­ty of ser­vices be­ing of­fered by the Ma­rine Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion of TT (MSATT), pre­vi­ous­ly known as the Yacht Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion of TT (YSATT) can help stim­u­late greater eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, which will boost for­eign ex­change earn­ings and pro­mote greater em­ploy­ment.

That’s the view of Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon, who spoke at the re­brand­ing of YSATT at Crews Inn Ho­tel & Yacht­ing Cen­tre, Ch­aguara­mas, on Wednes­day.

She out­lined that MSATT’s mem­ber­ship now ser­vices many ves­sels oth­er than yachts and plea­sure crafts such as pi­lot boats, coast guard pa­trol ves­sels, fish­ing ves­sels, oil tankers and tug­boats.

This, Gopee-Scoon not­ed, will al­so lead to the cre­ation of a ro­bust ma­rine ser­vice ecosys­tem in the west­ern penin­su­la, re­in­forc­ing this coun­try’s po­si­tion as a re­gion­al leader in boat re­pairs and main­te­nance.                                                                                                                                                                                                    

She re­ferred to da­ta from Re­search and Mar­kets, which stat­ed that the glob­al boat re­pair mar­ket is ex­pect­ed to grow from US$6.17 bil­lion in 2023 to US$9.22 bil­lion in 2027 rep­re­sent­ing an ex­po­nen­tial in­crease of 49.4 per cent.  

“These fig­ures are quite im­pres­sive, and T&T is well poised to in­crease its share of this lu­cra­tive in­dus­try. T&T’s com­pe­ten­cy in boat re­pair and main­te­nance is re­lat­ed to the suc­cess of its yacht­ing sec­tor over the past few decades. Our prowess in ma­rine ser­vices has at­tract­ed a di­verse clien­tele with yacht ar­rivals from across the world in­clud­ing coun­tries such as the Unit­ed States and Cana­da, Africa, Eu­rope, Hong Kong, and Aus­tralia,” the min­is­ter high­light­ed.

As a re­sult, she said MSATT’s piv­ot to of­fer a wider range of boat re­pair ser­vices bet­ter po­si­tions the as­so­ci­a­tion to cap­ture in­creased busi­ness from this emerg­ing mar­ket.

“Da­ta from Grand View Re­search, a Unit­ed States-based Mar­ket Re­search firm, has ar­tic­u­lat­ed that de­mand for yachts has al­so ex­pand­ed over the last few years, ow­ing to ris­ing dis­pos­able in­come, in­creased fo­cus on leisure or recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties, and a grow­ing pref­er­ence for lux­u­ry tourism.”  

“This is very en­cour­ag­ing for us as the Unit­ed States and Cana­da are ma­jor mar­kets for TT in terms of re­pairs and main­te­nance and will lead to a larg­er vol­ume of ves­sel ar­rivals for ser­vic­ing,” Gopee-Scoon added.

Al­so speak­ing at the event was the pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) Mark Edghill, who in­di­cat­ed that ma­rine ser­vices is a thriv­ing sec­tor in TT.  

Edghill said the ma­rine ser­vices in­dus­try, specif­i­cal­ly the yacht­ing sub-sec­tor at its peak in 2000 gen­er­at­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$56 mil­lion, in di­rect in­come from the ar­rival of 2,800 yachts, and he is con­fi­dent that the in­dus­try is mov­ing in the di­rec­tion to achieve this lev­el of rev­enue once more.

“T&T was seen as one of the prime yacht­ing des­ti­na­tions in the Caribbean for years. Trinidad and To­ba­go has many at­trac­tive el­e­ments that make it an ide­al ma­rine ser­vices des­ti­na­tion, chief among which are its unique ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion out­side of the hur­ri­cane belt, and low­er fre­quen­cy of ex­treme weath­er mak­ing it a safe har­bour for seago­ing ves­sels, and its sta­ble po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion," said Edghill.

Mean­while, MSATT’s head Pe­ter Peake said, “We hope that this re­brand will help to show­case our or­gan­i­sa­tion as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of hard-work­ing pro­fes­sion­als and trades­peo­ple. It will al­low us to deep­en our re­la­tion­ships and rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the ma­rine space and po­si­tion us for con­tin­ued growth in the 21st cen­tu­ry. We in­vite all of our stake­hold­ers and would-be stake­hold­ers to join us in wel­com­ing this next step in the im­prove­ment of our shared ma­rine in­dus­try.” (An­drea Perez-Sobers)