Loyse Vin­cent

An ex­pert in tourism in­tel­li­gence and de­vel­op­ment says the failed San­dals deal can be an op­por­tu­ni­ty to change this coun­try’s ap­proach to tourism.

Dr Au­liana Poon, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of Tourism In­tel­li­gence In­ter­na­tion­al, a lead­ing in­ter­na­tion­al con­sul­tan­cy that has been op­er­at­ing for more than 25 years, said To­ba­go’s tourism stake­hold­ers must let the world know “the is­land is open for busi­ness, but per­haps not open to San­dals busi­ness and not in that for­mat.”

Tourism In­tel­li­gence In­ter­na­tion­al re­cent­ly beat more than 20 com­peti­tors to land the con­tract to de­vel­op Do­mini­ca’s Na­tion­al Tourism Pol­i­cy and Tourism Mas­ter Plan. The com­pa­ny con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of more than 100 des­ti­na­tions, in­clud­ing Abu Dhabi, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Aus­tralia, the Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Benin, Den­mark, Fin­land, Ger­many, Greece and Hong Kong.

“When San­dals talks about the neg­a­tive press for some peo­ple its neg­a­tive press, but the in­de­pen­dent trav­eller is hap­py that an in­de­pen­dent des­ti­na­tion is con­cerned about its en­vi­ron­ment . . . (and) wants to have trans­paren­cy,” Poon said.

She said such trav­ellers “would love to come to a coun­try where peo­ple have a voice and have a say. So I say it’s( ex­treme­ly pos­i­tive de­pend­ing on how you look at it.”

Poon, who runs Vil­la Be­ing, a high-end tourism re­sort in To­ba­go, said of the 1.5 bil­lion trav­ellers glob­al­ly, on­ly two per cent trav­el to the Caribbean. If the des­ti­na­tion could at­tract 100,000 of the 1.5 bil­lion peo­ple who are more con­scious and ed­u­cat­ed, those trav­ellers would be in­ter­est­ed that To­ba­go is con­cerned about the en­vi­ron­ment, she said.

She al­so said To­ba­go might not have been ready for a project of the mag­ni­tude pro­posed by the Gov­ern­ment and San­dals.

“We need to re­think the strat­e­gy of just build­ing the stuff and let­ting some­body else come to man­age it. The re­al mon­ey is in the man­age­ment. Do we have the man­age­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties to run it?” Poon asked.

She sug­gest­ed that the Caribbean send stu­dents to the top uni­ver­si­ties in Switzer­land to study ho­tel man­age­ment so that they can re­turn to man­age the is­lands’re­sources.

Ac­cord­ing to Poon, San­dals might not have been what To­ba­go need­ed at this point.

“Club Med in­vent­ed this hol­i­day where peo­ple de­scend­ed on this vil­lage for sun, sand, sea and sex and what have you but where is Club Med to­day? Club Med had its day,” she said.

“The point I’m mak­ing is San­dals had 30 to 40 years of fan­tas­tic growth and de­vel­op­ment. I’m ask­ing is this the end of the life cy­cle we jump­ing on to? Is it that To­ba­go is now try­ing to per­fect the pro­duc­tion of type­writ­ers when every­body wants a com­put­er? Is this the end of the line? Is this on­ly thing? What is com­ing af­ter that?”