The In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) has is­sued a strong call for im­me­di­ate ac­tion to pro­tect To­ba­go’s tourism in­dus­try fol­low­ing the U.S. State De­part­ment’s Lev­el 3 trav­el ad­vi­so­ry is­sued on May 7, 2025.

The ad­vi­so­ry warns trav­ellers to “re­con­sid­er trav­el” to Trinidad and To­ba­go due to se­ri­ous risks from crime, as well as height­ened risks of ter­ror­ism and kid­nap­ping.

The IDA ex­pressed deep con­cern over the dis­pro­por­tion­ate im­pact such ad­vi­sories have on To­ba­go’s econ­o­my, which heav­i­ly re­lies on tourism. They ar­gue that To­ba­go is of­ten un­fair­ly af­fect­ed by se­cu­ri­ty is­sues pri­mar­i­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with Trinidad.

Dr. Denise Tsoiafatt An­gus, Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the IDA, stat­ed, “Tourism is not a hob­by for To­ba­go—it is a life­line. Yet, time and again, To­ba­go is dragged down by na­tion­al is­sues we have no con­trol over, while our peo­ple are left to clean up the mess.”

The U.S. ad­vi­so­ry high­lights that vi­o­lent crime, in­clud­ing mur­der, rob­bery, as­sault, home in­va­sions, and kid­nap­ping, is com­mon through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go. It notes that gang ac­tiv­i­ty, such as nar­cotics traf­fick­ing, is preva­lent, with a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of vi­o­lent crime be­ing gang-re­lat­ed.

The IDA crit­i­cized the gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to im­ple­ment a To­ba­go-spe­cif­ic na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­da that would in­te­grate the is­land in­to na­tion­al crime mit­i­ga­tion strate­gies, there­by pro­tect­ing its econ­o­my and glob­al im­age.

The par­ty has is­sued three ur­gent calls to ac­tion:

Im­me­di­ate col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Min­is­ter of Tourism, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA), and com­mu­ni­ty tourism lead­ers to de­vel­op a To­ba­go-spe­cif­ic cri­sis re­sponse plan.

An of­fi­cial state­ment from the Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty clar­i­fy­ing that To­ba­go re­mains a safe des­ti­na­tion, dis­tinct from crime hotspots in Trinidad.

En­gage­ment with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to en­sure fu­ture trav­el ad­vi­sories in­clude clear dis­claimers sep­a­rat­ing To­ba­go from high-risk ar­eas in Trinidad.

Be­yond ad­dress­ing the im­me­di­ate cri­sis, the IDA em­pha­sizes the need for long-term trans­for­ma­tion of To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor. They ad­vo­cate for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in­to ar­eas such as ed­u­ca­tion tourism, health­care and well­ness tourism, and the de­vel­op­ment of the cre­ative and cul­tur­al econ­o­my.

Dr. An­gus con­clud­ed, “We must con­tin­ue to fight for a gov­er­nance mod­el where To­ba­go is in con­trol of its own fu­ture, where cit­i­zens can have their voic­es heard in na­tion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing, and where our com­mu­ni­ties lead the way for­ward. Be­cause that, my friends, is the on­ly way that the AND in Trinidad AND To­ba­go will not be for­got­ten.”