Small tour op­er­a­tors and trav­el agents may have to fold op­er­a­tions af­ter Car­ni­val 2018 un­less the econ­o­my shows some im­prove­ment. This word comes from Ch­agua­nas trav­el agent Ra­jive Dip­nar­i­nesingh, who has been in the busi­ness for over two decades. He said “2017 has been the worst the in­dus­try has seen. Be­cause of re­stric­tions with for­eign ex­change peo­ple are not get­ting the funds to trav­el. The econ­o­my has slowed and peo­ple do not have the monies to trav­el.

"Even the man on a bud­get who wants to go to To­ba­go for a va­ca­tion is fac­ing trans­porta­tion woes. It is eas­i­er to vis­it Guyana than to go to To­ba­go. The fer­ry ser­vice is er­rat­ic, Caribbean Air­lines has a short­age of flights and their new $50 pol­i­cy to change flights is now be­ing seen by trav­ellers as pe­nal­iz­ing them for the in­ef­fi­cien­cies of the air bridge. Af­ter Car­ni­val 2018 things are go­ing to get hard­er un­less the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties put some sys­tem in place to boost eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties. Small op­er­a­tors will have no choice to di­ver­si­fy in­to oth­er ar­eas of busi­ness or fold their op­er­a­tions.”