Je­re­my Knott

As some­one whose fam­i­ly and busi­ness have been in­vest­ed in To­ba­go for gen­er­a­tions, I have watched with con­cern the grow­ing ten­den­cy to op­pose al­most every sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment pro­posed for our is­land.

To­ba­go Es­tates Agency Ltd. has been help­ing peo­ple in­vest, build and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties in To­ba­go since the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. Over that time, we have wit­nessed both pe­ri­ods of pros­per­i­ty and pe­ri­ods where a lack of in­vest­ment has held the is­land back. One les­son has re­mained con­stant: com­mu­ni­ties thrive when re­spon­si­ble de­vel­op­ment is en­cour­aged, not dis­cour­aged.

The pro­posed ho­tel de­vel­op­ment at Rocky Point has gen­er­at­ed pas­sion­ate de­bate. While every­one is en­ti­tled to their views, it is im­por­tant that the dis­cus­sion is bal­anced and ground­ed in eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ty.

To­ba­go can­not re­ly in­def­i­nite­ly on Trinidad’s oil and gas sec­tor to sup­port its fu­ture. In­ter­na­tion­al en­er­gy mar­kets are chang­ing rapid­ly, and even ma­jor in­sti­tu­tions such as the World Bank have high­light­ed con­cerns re­gard­ing the long-term eco­nom­ic chal­lenges fac­ing T&T.

A weak­er na­tion­al econ­o­my and any fu­ture de­val­u­a­tion of the TT dol­lar would in­crease the cost of im­port­ed goods, con­struc­tion ma­te­ri­als, food and every­day ne­ces­si­ties.

Tourism re­mains one of the few in­dus­tries ca­pa­ble of gen­er­at­ing sub­stan­tial for­eign ex­change earn­ings di­rect­ly for To­ba­go. Every vis­i­tor who ar­rives brings spend­ing pow­er that sup­ports lo­cal busi­ness­es, restau­rants, taxi op­er­a­tors, tour guides, fish­er­men, farm­ers, re­tail­ers, and count­less oth­er ser­vice providers.

The re­al­i­ty is that To­ba­go has a short­age of high-qual­i­ty ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion. Vis­i­tors fre­quent­ly strug­gle to find the range and stan­dard of rooms avail­able in com­pet­ing Caribbean des­ti­na­tions. We al­so have rel­a­tive­ly few restau­rants and tourism at­trac­tions com­pared with is­lands that have suc­cess­ful­ly ex­pand­ed their vis­i­tor economies.

At the same time, To­ba­go has re­cent­ly com­plet­ed one of the most sig­nif­i­cant in­fra­struc­ture in­vest­ments in its his­to­ry: the new air­port ter­mi­nal. This mod­ern fa­cil­i­ty has in­creased the is­land’s abil­i­ty to wel­come vis­i­tors from around the world. How­ev­er, air­ports alone do not cre­ate tourism. Vis­i­tors al­so need qual­i­ty places to stay, dine and spend their leisure time.

Many suc­cess­ful Caribbean des­ti­na­tions have demon­strat­ed what can be achieved when in­fra­struc­ture and tourism de­vel­op­ment work to­geth­er. The trans­for­ma­tion of tourism in St Vin­cent fol­low­ing the open­ing of Ar­gyle In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, com­bined with ma­jor re­sort in­vest­ment, in­clud­ing the ar­rival of the San­dals brand, il­lus­trates how strate­gic de­vel­op­ment can cre­ate jobs, stim­u­late lo­cal busi­ness growth and at­tract in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion.

Op­po­nents of de­vel­op­ment of­ten ar­gue that ex­ist­ing nat­ur­al ar­eas should re­main un­touched. En­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion is un­doubt­ed­ly im­por­tant. How­ev­er, it is equal­ly im­por­tant to recog­nise that this project has al­ready un­der­gone ex­ten­sive en­vi­ron­men­tal re­view and has re­ceived the nec­es­sary ap­provals from the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties. These ap­provals ex­ist pre­cise­ly to en­sure that de­vel­op­ments meet es­tab­lished en­vi­ron­men­tal stan­dards.

An­oth­er point of­ten over­looked is pub­lic ac­cess. The beach be­low the pro­posed de­vel­op­ment is cur­rent­ly dif­fi­cult for many peo­ple to reach. Ac­cess in­volves ne­go­ti­at­ing a steep and chal­leng­ing de­scent that is be­yond the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of many el­der­ly res­i­dents, fam­i­lies with young chil­dren, and vis­i­tors with mo­bil­i­ty lim­i­ta­tions. Thought­ful de­vel­op­ment can of­ten im­prove ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty while main­tain­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal safe­guards.

It is al­so worth not­ing that many of the loud­est ob­jec­tions fre­quent­ly come from in­di­vid­u­als who have lit­tle di­rect eco­nom­ic de­pen­dence on To­ba­go’s fu­ture pros­per­i­ty, and in some cas­es have lim­it­ed day-to-day con­nec­tion with the is­land it­self. Mean­while, lo­cal busi­ness­es, work­ers, and young To­bag­o­ni­ans seek­ing em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties of­ten have a very dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive.

No de­vel­op­ment is per­fect. Con­struc­tive crit­i­cism is healthy and nec­es­sary. But re­ject­ing in­vest­ment sim­ply be­cause it changes the sta­tus quo is not a strat­e­gy for eco­nom­ic growth.

To­ba­go’s young peo­ple de­serve op­por­tu­ni­ties that al­low them to build ca­reers with­out feel­ing com­pelled to leave the is­land. Busi­ness­es need cus­tomers. Com­mu­ni­ties need in­vest­ment. Gov­ern­ment needs tax rev­enues. The tourism sec­tor can help de­liv­er all three.

The choice fac­ing To­ba­go is not be­tween de­vel­op­ment and par­adise. The re­al choice is whether we em­brace re­spon­si­ble in­vest­ment that cre­ates jobs, at­tracts vis­i­tors, and strength­ens our econ­o­my, or whether we con­tin­ue to fall be­hind com­pet­ing des­ti­na­tions that are ac­tive­ly plan­ning for the fu­ture.

For over a cen­tu­ry, To­ba­go Es­tates Agency Ltd. has be­lieved in the po­ten­tial of this is­land. We con­tin­ue to do so to­day. The ques­tion is whether we have the con­fi­dence to in­vest in that fu­ture and al­low To­ba­go to re­alise its full po­ten­tial.