The To­ba­go Tourism Agency Ltd (TTAL) has paid out over 1 mil­lion dol­lars to 16 tourist ac­com­mo­da­tion prop­er­ties across the is­land in a bid the bol­ster the is­land's tourism prod­uct.

In a news re­lease, TTAL said fi­nan­cial re­im­burse­ments and grant pay­ments to­talling $1,047,856.24 were made to the prop­er­ty own­ers in a cer­e­mo­ny on Mon­day.

"These pay­ments were made un­der the Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Up­grade Project (TAUP) and Phase 2 of the Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Re­lief Grant (Phase 2 TARG) pro­gramme—un­der­scor­ing TTAL’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to el­e­vat­ing To­ba­go’s tourism in­dus­try and de­liv­er­ing ex­pe­ri­ences that go Be­yond Or­di­nary," said the tourism agency.

The Cab­i­net-ap­proved TAUP in­cen­tive of­fers par­tial re­im­burse­ment grants to el­i­gi­ble ac­com­mo­da­tion providers in Trinidad and To­ba­go for prop­er­ty up­grades.

The re­lease ex­plained, the ini­tia­tive is ad­min­is­tered by TTAL and has been piv­otal in en­hanc­ing the qual­i­ty of guest ex­pe­ri­ences, strength­en­ing the is­land’s hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­fra­struc­ture, and im­prov­ing the over­all com­pet­i­tive­ness and re­silience of the sec­tor. Phase 2 of the TARG pro­gramme, which was al­so de­signed to fi­nan­cial­ly sup­port tourism ac­com­mo­da­tion fa­cil­i­ties in To­ba­go, has al­so been in­stru­men­tal in strength­en­ing the sec­tor.

The 16 prop­er­ties recog­nised were Bev­er­ly's Oa­sis Suites, Ba­nanaquit, JG's Trop­i­cal Apart­ments, Castle­white Ho­tel, Plan­ta­tion Beach Vil­las, The Vil­las at Stone­haven, Sun­shine Hol­i­day Apart­ments, Tropik­ist Beach Ho­tel and Re­sort, Arnos Vale Va­ca­tion Apart­ments, Hi­bis­cus Heights, Ad­ven­ture Eco Vil­las, House in the Moun­tain, Vil­la Be­ing, Philo­mat's Guest­house, Cool Run­nings Hol­i­day Apart­ments and Ri­biero’s Hol­i­day Apart­ments.

Chair of the TTAL board of di­rec­tors, Dalia Jer­ry, praised the ded­i­ca­tion of the par­tic­i­pat­ing prop­er­ties, as she stressed they were com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing high stan­dards of ser­vice and hos­pi­tal­i­ty as well as their con­tri­bu­tions to To­ba­go’s tourism growth.

Sec­re­tary for Tourism, Cul­ture, An­tiq­ui­ties and Trans­porta­tion (DOT­CAT), Coun­cil­lor Tashia Grace Bur­ris, not­ed the key link be­tween qual­i­ty in­fra­struc­ture and em­pow­ered stake­hold­ers in shap­ing the To­ba­go ex­pe­ri­ence.

“To­ba­go has sun, sand and sea, and every­thing else that oth­er tourism des­ti­na­tions have, but what will dif­fer­en­ti­ate us from every­one else is the lev­el of ser­vice and ex­pe­ri­ence that we of­fer,” she said.

“Al­though TTAL has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing and brand­ing, there is a lot more that we have to be able to do. We have to be the ones to go out there and sell the prod­uct, but it has to be of a high qual­i­ty and stan­dard. So, it’s not just about up­grad­ing your four walls or re­plac­ing linens, fur­ni­ture and fix­tures, but in­vest­ing in peo­ple,” Bur­ris said.

TTAL said this lat­est round of dis­burse­ments marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for the agency in pro­vid­ing sup­port to its stake­hold­ers, with the re­main­ing pay­ments ex­pect­ed be­fore the end of the fis­cal year.