An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Tourism stake­hold­ers are prepar­ing for Mon­day’s Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view with mod­est ex­pec­ta­tions, but a long list of con­cerns they be­lieve must be ad­dressed if the sec­tor is to play a mean­ing­ful role in T&T’s eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion agen­da.

In­dus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives who spoke with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian iden­ti­fied mar­ket­ing, air­lift, vis­i­tor ar­rivals, tourism in­fra­struc­ture, crime per­cep­tions, for­eign ex­change con­straints, and stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion as among the most press­ing is­sues fac­ing the sec­tor.

While the gov­ern­ment has re­peat­ed­ly high­light­ed tourism as a pil­lar of di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, sev­er­al in­dus­try lead­ers said tan­gi­ble re­sults have yet to ma­te­ri­alise for busi­ness­es op­er­at­ing on the ground.

Mar­ket­ing and ar­rivals un­der pres­sure

Pres­i­dent of the Small Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Own­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go (STAOTT), Denise Ale­ong, said op­er­a­tors con­tin­ue to face chal­lenges stem­ming from re­duced vis­i­tor ar­rivals, in­ad­e­quate des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing and a lack of reg­u­la­tion for short-term rental prop­er­ties.

“I don’t know what to say in terms of hav­ing any an­tic­i­pa­tion or any­thing like that, be­cause you would know the ar­rivals have re­duced dur­ing the SoE (State of Emere­gency). Even though they claim this and claim that, that is not the re­al­i­ty on the ground,” Ale­ong said.

She ar­gued that many small ac­com­mo­da­tion providers in Trinidad have be­come in­creas­ing­ly de­pen­dent on do­mes­tic trav­ellers as in­ter­na­tion­al ar­rivals re­main sub­dued.

“I think most of us are sur­viv­ing on do­mes­tic,” she said.

Ale­ong al­so point­ed to on­go­ing con­cerns sur­round­ing Airbnb-style ac­com­mo­da­tion providers.

“The same is­sue we have in re­turn with Airbnb. It’s not be­ing ad­dressed. The same thing, with no reg­u­la­tions. No reg­u­la­tions of the sec­tor. So that is af­fect­ing our book­ings. Con­tin­u­ous­ly af­fect­ing book­ings,” she lament­ed.

She ques­tioned whether tourism di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts have trans­lat­ed in­to mea­sur­able ben­e­fits for op­er­a­tors.

“So far it’s been talk. I haven’t seen any in our small ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor. We on­ly hear talk,” she said.

Ale­ong ac­knowl­edged the gov­ern­ment’s re­cent em­pha­sis on niche tourism seg­ments such as eco-tourism and sports tourism, but said in­dus­try par­tic­i­pants have yet to re­ceive de­tails on tar­get mar­kets or im­ple­men­ta­tion plans.

She al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of some Caribbean Air­lines routes in­tro­duced over the past year.

“We saw the ar­eas, but we haven’t seen the tar­get mar­kets. If they’re re­al­ly go­ing to be tar­get­ting the USA or wher­ev­er, we haven’t heard any plans,” she said.

Calls for stronger co­or­di­na­tion

A re­cur­ring con­cern among tourism stake­hold­ers is what they de­scribe as in­suf­fi­cient con­sul­ta­tion be­tween pol­i­cy­mak­ers and in­dus­try prac­ti­tion­ers.

Ale­ong said the for­mer Tourism Stand­ing Com­mit­tee pro­vid­ed a fo­rum where in­dus­try groups, Gov­ern­ment agen­cies, and tourism-re­lat­ed in­sti­tu­tions could ad­dress op­er­a­tional chal­lenges and de­vel­op long-term plans.

“At least once a month, we would meet. We had sub­com­mit­tees where the dif­fer­ent sub­com­mit­tees would sit out­side of the main stand­ing com­mit­tee and come up with plans, short-term, medi­um-term, and long-term plans,” she said.

The com­mit­tee in­clud­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from tourism or­gan­i­sa­tions as well as agen­cies such as the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty, Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, and Port Au­thor­i­ty.

“If any par­tic­u­lar sec­tor was hav­ing is­sues, it would be brought to the ta­ble, and we would deal with it. We al­so made plans for the fu­ture in terms of guid­ing the in­dus­try in ar­eas like prod­uct de­vel­op­ment, mar­ket­ing, and ac­cess,” she out­lined.

Ale­ong said she is un­cer­tain whether the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism’s new en­gage­ment mod­el with pri­vate-sec­tor groups pro­vides tourism stake­hold­ers with the same lev­el of rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

“It seems as though the new min­istry is tak­ing a dif­fer­ent ap­proach in deal­ing with tourism when it comes to con­sult­ing and mak­ing plans for the sec­tor,” she said.

Pres­i­dent of the Tourism In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TIATT), Lisa Shandilya, al­so stressed the need for greater col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“The tourism sec­tor can no longer sur­vive on sta­t­ic plans. For too long, we have watched our re­gion­al neigh­bours thrive while our lo­cal in­dus­try faces a sys­temic de­cline that threat­ens our col­lec­tive liveli­hood,” Shandilya said.

She de­scribed the Mid-Year Re­view as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide tar­get­ed fund­ing, pol­i­cy di­rec­tion, and in­sti­tu­tion­al sup­port.

Shandilya point­ed to a re­port­ed 14.6 per cent de­cline in vis­i­tor ar­rivals com­pared with the pre­vi­ous year, at­tribut­ing the de­crease to air­lift chal­lenges, dis­rup­tions in do­mes­tic trans­porta­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el bar­ri­ers.

She al­so high­light­ed a sharp de­cline in cruise tourism.

“Cruise calls plum­met­ed to just 32 this sea­son, down from 41 last year and 64 the year be­fore. This rapid de­cline rep­re­sents a mas­sive loss of vi­tal, di­rect rev­enue for lo­cal ar­ti­sans, tour op­er­a­tors, and small busi­ness­es,” she stressed.

In­vest­ment, safe­ty and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion

While stake­hold­ers wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s stat­ed am­bi­tion of in­creas­ing tourism’s eco­nom­ic con­tri­bu­tion, many ar­gued that stronger in­vest­ment would be re­quired to achieve those goals.

Shandilya said Trinidad and To­ba­go needs a uni­fied tourism brand and a mod­ern mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy ca­pa­ble of com­pet­ing with re­gion­al des­ti­na­tions.

“We can no longer mar­ket Trinidad, To­ba­go, and Trin­ba­go as com­pet­ing iden­ti­ties. This frag­ment­ed ap­proach is cost­ly, con­fus­ing, and has not de­liv­ered the re­sults we need. Itis time to get it right,” she said.

She called for in­creased in­vest­ment in dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el part­ner­ships and des­ti­na­tion pro­mo­tion.

At the same time, she ar­gued that pub­lic safe­ty re­mains a crit­i­cal fac­tor in­flu­enc­ing tourism de­mand.

“Tourism, much like the en­er­gy sec­tor and in­vest­ment sec­tor, re­lies en­tire­ly on con­sumer and in­vestor con­fi­dence,” she said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing ef­forts by law en­force­ment to com­bat crime, Shandilya said the gov­ern­ment must al­so man­age the in­ter­na­tion­al per­cep­tion cre­at­ed by neg­a­tive head­lines.

“While TTPS ser­vices try to man­age this on­go­ing surge in white and blue col­lar crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, we al­so need the com­mu­ni­ca­tion arm of the Gov­ern­ment to proac­tive­ly man­age the re­sult­ing neg­a­tive head­lines that threat­en in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers and in­vestors,” she said.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TITOA), Lor­raine Pouchet, said tourism re­mains one of the coun­try’s strongest op­por­tu­ni­ties for eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion, and job cre­ation.

She called for in­creased fund­ing for des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing, in­ter­na­tion­al trade show par­tic­i­pa­tion and part­ner­ships with air­lines and cruise op­er­a­tors.

“Con­sis­tent glob­al vis­i­bil­i­ty is es­sen­tial to in­creas­ing vis­i­tor ar­rivals and mar­ket share,” Pouchet said.

She al­so iden­ti­fied air­lift and con­nec­tiv­i­ty as ma­jor ob­sta­cles to growth and urged the gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er in­cen­tives aimed at at­tract­ing new air­lines and in­creas­ing flight fre­quen­cies.

Be­yond trans­porta­tion, Pouchet said im­prove­ments to roads, sig­nage, her­itage sites, vis­i­tor ameni­ties, and pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture would strength­en the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence.

She al­so ad­vo­cat­ed greater sup­port for small and medi­um-sized tourism en­ter­pris­es through grants, low-in­ter­est fi­nanc­ing, and tax in­cen­tives.

“The tourism in­dus­try would al­so ben­e­fit from stronger sup­port for com­mu­ni­ty tourism, eco­tourism, cul­tur­al tourism, sports tourism, and events tourism,” she said.

As Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, pre­pares to de­liv­er the Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view, tourism stake­hold­ers say they will be watch­ing close­ly to see whether the gov­ern­ment’s di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion agen­da is backed by con­crete mea­sures.

For many in the in­dus­try, Mon­day’s re­view will be less about promis­es and more about whether tourism fi­nal­ly moves high­er up the na­tion­al eco­nom­ic pri­or­i­ty list.