Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Apart from grow­ing pub­lic and vis­i­tor con­cern on T&T’s po­si­tion amid geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions, cruise ship op­er­a­tors have re­port­ed a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in pre-booked tours, in­clud­ing one ves­sel can­celling its To­ba­go call for this Fri­day.

This was the word from T&T In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (TTI­TOA), whose pres­i­dent, Lor­raine Pouchet, is al­so in­ter­im chair­man of the T&T Coali­tion of Tourism As­so­ci­a­tions (TTC­TA).

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia queries, the TTI­TOA spoke about cur­rent sen­ti­ment, busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty and stake­hold­er feed­back with­in the tourism and mar­itime sec­tors.

On the cruise ship sec­tor im­pact specif­i­cal­ly, the TTI­TO stat­ed, “Cruise ship op­er­a­tors have re­port­ed a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in pre-booked tours, pas­sen­gers ex­press­ing un­cer­tain­ty re­lat­ed to safe­ty and one cruise ves­sel can­celling its To­ba­go call for this Fri­day.”

On the over­all busi­ness cli­mate and book­ing trends, how­ev­er, the TTI­TOA said at this time, no ma­jor can­cel­la­tions were record­ed across the sec­tor for the 2024/2025 win­ter sea­son or Car­ni­val pe­ri­od.

“Sev­er­al op­er­a­tors con­tin­ue re­ceiv­ing steady in­quiries and nor­mal book­ing lev­els, in­clud­ing for­ward book­ings in­to the 2025 hur­ri­cane sea­son. Cruis­ing/yacht­ing com­mu­ni­ty feed­back in­di­cates no can­cel­la­tions to date. In some cas­es, vis­i­tors have ex­pressed a sense of im­proved safe­ty at sea, giv­en re­duced con­cerns about pira­cy dur­ing pas­sages from the north­ern is­lands.”

But on stake­hold­er feed­back, the as­so­ci­a­tion not­ed grow­ing pub­lic and vis­i­tor con­cern.

“While can­cel­la­tions re­main min­i­mal, there is a no­tice­able in­crease in con­cern among some lo­cal tourism pro­fes­sion­als, in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, and a small num­ber of vis­i­tors.

“These con­cerns are dri­ven pri­mar­i­ly by T&T prox­im­i­ty to Venezuela, height­ened rhetoric and vis­i­ble mil­i­tary pres­ence and fears that To­ba­go may be per­ceived as a po­ten­tial strate­gic tar­get due to the US radar in­stal­la­tion. Stake­hold­ers warn that con­tin­ued es­ca­la­tion could im­pact vis­i­tor con­fi­dence, par­tic­u­lar­ly for To­ba­go, whose brand is built on tran­quil­li­ty, na­ture, and safe­ty.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion said mem­bers have high­light­ed an ur­gent need for strong, con­sis­tent and well-fund­ed mar­ket­ing of T&T as a safe, at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tion, and a greater pres­ence in Caribbean sail­ing, cruis­ing and trav­el pub­li­ca­tions, where com­peti­tor des­ti­na­tions con­tin­ue to ad­ver­tise ag­gres­sive and clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion from rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties re­gard­ing safe­ty, ad­vi­sories and mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty.

On the out­look for 2025–2026, the TTI­TOA said, “At present, in­ter­est in T&T re­mains strong, es­pe­cial­ly in eco-tourism, culi­nary tourism, and Car­ni­val-dri­ven trav­el. The di­as­po­ra con­tin­ues show­ing steady in­ter­est in re­turn­ing home for cul­tur­al events and fam­i­ly trav­el. Fu­ture risks re­late pri­mar­i­ly to per­cep­tion, not ac­tu­al in­ci­dents.

“Stake­hold­ers em­pha­sise that clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion, proac­tive mar­ket­ing, and gov­ern­ment en­gage­ment will be crit­i­cal to safe­guard­ing the des­ti­na­tion’s in­vest­ment rep­u­ta­tion and tourism per­for­mance over the next two years.”