The Trinidad Ho­tels Restau­rants and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (THRTA) says it “could not agree more” with the rec­om­men­da­tions made by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert for a Tourism Task Force.

In re­sponse to Im­bert, THRTA CEO Bri­an Fron­tin said of im­me­di­ate con­cern, how­ev­er, is the Road Map Com­mit­tee’s con­tin­ued fo­cus and ear­mark­ing of eight sec­tors to re­vi­talise the econ­o­my of T&T, name­ly: agri­cul­ture, con­struc­tion, en­er­gy, man­u­fac­tur­ing, ser­vices, whole­sale, re­tail and dis­tri­b­u­tion, bank­ing and in­sur­ance, small busi­ness and cred­it unions.

“Whilst it is plau­si­ble that the tourism in­dus­try may be sub­sumed with­in the ser­vices am­bit, the THRTA again calls on the Gov­ern­ment to have to courage to iden­ti­fy hos­pi­tal­i­ty and tourism as pri­or­i­ty sec­tor and col­lab­o­rate with the Na­tion­al Tourism As­so­ci­a­tions to bold­ly de­vel­op a shared vi­sion and as­pi­ra­tional goals,” Fron­tin ad­vised.

He not­ed the con­trary to pre­vail­ing be­liefs, there is a de­vel­oped hos­pi­tal­i­ty and tourism sec­tor with­in both T&T and, as re­cent as 2019, the com­bined di­rect and in­di­rect con­tri­bu­tion of the sec­tor to T&T’s gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP) was $12.5 bil­lion or 7.8 per cent of to­tal GDP.

The hos­pi­tal­i­ty and tourism sec­tor al­so em­ployed (di­rect­ly and in­di­rect­ly) over 52,500 jobs, rep­re­sent­ing 8.5 per cent of to­tal em­ploy­ment in 2019, Fron­tin said, cit­ing the World Trav­el and Tourism Coun­cil – Eco­nom­ic Im­pact 2020 Re­port (T&T).

High­ly con­sis­tent

Fron­tin said the min­is­ter’s com­ments on the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Road Map Com­mit­tee for the tourism sec­tor are high­ly con­sis­tent with those pro­vid­ed by the THRTA to the Com­mit­tee in its May 1, sub­mis­sion.

The as­so­ci­a­tion’s rec­om­men­da­tions in­clud­ed the con­ven­ing of a Tourism In­dus­try Re­cov­ery Task Force com­pris­ing both Gov­ern­ment and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Na­tion­al Tourism As­so­ci­a­tions.

The man­date of this Task Force Fron­tin ex­plained would be to con­sid­er the sub­mit­ted ac­tion­able plan, re-af­firm the pri­or­i­ty fo­cal ar­eas, quan­ti­fy the re­source and sup­port re­quire­ments, and de­vel­op the de­tailed so­lu­tions and path­ways for ac­cess­ing of same by op­er­a­tors across the sec­tor.

Fron­tin said the THRTA has con­sis­tent­ly ad­vised the Gov­ern­ment that mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion is re­quired in the tourism in­dus­try along with a deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion that de­vel­oped so­lu­tions and re­lief pro­grammes must be ex­tend­ed to all op­er­a­tors in cri­sis, across both Des­ti­na­tion Trinidad and Des­ti­na­tion To­ba­go.

“The fact re­mains that pri­vate­ly-owned ac­com­mo­da­tion and tourism op­er­a­tors in both des­ti­na­tions do not have the abil­i­ty to weath­er the fi­nan­cial fall-out that has arisen due to the nec­es­sary clo­sure of bor­ders over the past few months and Gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion is re­quired ur­gent­ly” Fron­tin said.

He added that the THRTA, whilst heart­ened by these de­vel­op­ments, awaits con­fir­ma­tion that the Gov­ern­ment has ac­cept­ed the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Road Map Com­mit­tee, ev­i­denced by the swift con­ven­ing of a Tourism Re­cov­ery Task Force for both Trinidad and To­ba­go, with strong rep­re­sen­ta­tion and in­clu­sion of the Na­tion­al Tourism As­so­ci­a­tions and oth­er key stake­hold­ers.

In­ter­im fo­cus

But Fron­tin said in the in­ter­im, the lead­er­ships of the Na­tion­al Tourism As­so­ci­a­tions (in Des­ti­na­tion Trinidad) anx­ious­ly an­tic­i­pate the im­mi­nent con­ven­ing of the meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of Tourism, which he com­mit­ted to on March 19, giv­en the re­lax­ation of pub­lic health mea­sures on gath­er­ings and meet­ings and the re­open­ing of the Pub­lic Ser­vice since June 1.

In Par­lia­ment on Fri­day Im­bert made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing the 2020 Sup­ple­men­tary Ap­pro­pri­a­tion and Mid-Year Re­view, with spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Road Map Com­mit­tee not­ing that the Tourism sec­tor re­quires par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion at this time.

Im­bert had said The Road Map Com­mit­tee rec­om­mends that a task force should de­vel­op a tourism re­cov­ery plan ad­dress­ing pri­or­i­ty ar­eas, re­source needs as well as ap­pro­pri­ate so­lu­tions.

In par­al­lel, tourism-re­lat­ed con­struc­tion in­cen­tives should be ex­pand­ed as well as emer­gency sup­port grants for mi­cro-busi­ness­es and a liq­uid­i­ty sup­port pro­gramme for vi­able small-and-medi­um-sized tourism re­lat­ed busi­ness­es, Im­bert added.