Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan says during the first week of sailing of the Galleons Passage it transported 1,862 passengers and 400 vehicles in ten trips between Port-of-Spain and Scarborough.
The vessel made its first commercial voyage on October 8, setting sail from the Port of Port-of-Spain to Scarborough at about 6.07 am with 85 persons aboard, including Minister Sinanan.
The US$18.2 m vessel arrived from China in July but had to undergo certification and retrofitting before being put into service. The vessel has a capacity to transport 700 passengers and 100 vehicles on a trip.
In ten trips, if it carried a full load, 7,000 passengers and 1,000 vehicles could have been transported.
According to the official schedule from the Port Authority the vessel sails on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and so far the journey has taken just over four hours one way.
But stakeholders in Tobago say they are yet to see an improvement in visitors to the island since they believe people were waiting to see how reliable the vessel would be. Reliability, they say, would be a key factor in restoring confidence.
President of the Bread and Breakfast Association Kaye Trotman told Guardian Media: “It is a bit too soon. The vessel has to prove itself.”
Trotman said the vessel needed to start sailing on a “regular and predictable schedule for people to regain confidence.”
Although the vessel has a set sailing schedule from Port-of-Spain at 6 am and Scarborough at 4 pm on the days it sails, Trotman said people were still gauging the reliability and whether it stayed on schedule.
“That will help build confidence,” she said.
Trotman said while it was early days yet, she was hoping that there would be a turnaround between now and Christmas and that local tourists would resume trips to Tobago.
Owner of Bago’s Beach Bar Shirley Cooke, who also sits on the Tobago Hotel and Tourism Institute’s Board of Directors, told Guardian Media there had been “no difference” in the number of visitors to Tobago from what she had seen.
Cooke said: “It’s been two years we waiting. At present we can only hope, what else you going to do?” she asked as she reflected on the economic fallout which Tobago had suffered as a result of the seabridge problems. The ferry service collapsed in April after the only vessel servicing the route, the T&T Express, had to undergo repairs. Caribbean Airlines stepped in to transport passengers on chartered flights.
Looking at her own business place, she said, “nobody here beside me, you literally babysitting the business and have the doors open in the hope that someone comes.”
She admitted that on the weekend, however, “there is a little trickle.” But she said the situation was still dire.
Lloyd Warner of Penny Savers Supermarket said he had noticed no change in the number of visitors to the island since the Galleons Passage started sailing.
He said when visitors were on the island, the number of people passing through the supermarket increased, but that had not happened.
Warner agreed that it was early days yet as he too expressed optimism that things would change in the coming weeks.
“Whether there will be an increase in confidence and visitors return remains to be seen,” he said, reiterating that at this time, he was not seeing it.
Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Inter-Island Transportation Company Vilma Lewis Cockburn told Guardian Media the Galleons Passage would remain on the four-day schedule for now and in any peak periods, they would add additional sailings.