Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, Far­ley Au­gus­tine says the THA is mo­bil­is­ing ad­di­tion­al land to ac­com­mo­date the scale and de­sign of the re­sort.

“The THA (is) sup­port­ing. We are ac­tu­al­ly in the process of or­gan­is­ing some ad­di­tion­al lands for the ho­tel de­vel­op­ment.”

He de­scribed the re­sort as a “mixed type of de­vel­op­ment” that goes be­yond a tra­di­tion­al ho­tel mod­el.

“So there is a tra­di­tion­al ho­tel com­po­nent, and then there are self con­tained rooms that will al­so be part of the ho­tel es­tab­lish­ment. So it’s Hilton Ta­pes­try.”

Au­gus­tine hailed the project as a vote of con­fi­dence in To­ba­go, but he made it clear the process took far too long—and that To­ba­go’s in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment must im­prove.

“By the way, this project was con­ceived many, many, many years ago. They had ap­provals prob­a­bly from as far back be­tween 2008 and 2010, so this has been in the mak­ing for a long time. This al­so says that as an is­land we have to work on how do we get these in­vest­ments on the ground and ac­tive in a much short­er time frame than that.”

“It can’t be that peo­ple de­sire to do in­vest­ments and then it takes 10 or 11 years for you to get start­ed and get go­ing.”

“We have to work on the ease of do­ing busi­ness in To­ba­go, and that’s one of the things that this ad­min­is­tra­tion is ac­tive­ly work­ing on.”

Au­gus­tine po­si­tioned the de­vel­op­ment not just as a com­mer­cial mile­stone, but as a no­tice of a bu­reau­crat­ic sys­tem that slows To­ba­go’s growth.

Still, he sees the Hilton brand’s re­turn as a pos­i­tive in­di­ca­tor.

“It will be the very first brand­ed ho­tel on is­land in To­ba­go East,” he said.

“It al­so sig­nals the re­turn of Hilton brand to To­ba­go, which is a good sign for the econ­o­my, as it shows that there is still con­fi­dence in the To­ba­go space.”