Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les 

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA), Regi­nald MacLean, says a re­cent US trav­el ad­vi­so­ry is dam­ag­ing to To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor and to­tal­ly un­fair.

MacLean told Guardian Me­dia the Lev­el 3 ad­vi­so­ry, pub­lished on May 7, warned against trav­el to Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause of crime, ter­ror­ism, and kid­nap­ping. How­ev­er, he ar­gued that the is­sues were hap­pen­ing main­ly in Trinidad, while To­ba­go was pay­ing the price.

He said To­ba­go re­mained a safe des­ti­na­tion, but be­ing tied to Trinidad made the is­land look dan­ger­ous.

“To­ba­go, be­ing tied to Trinidad, has some un­for­tu­nate things, and that is one of the things. The crime in Trinidad is a lot worse than we would all like it to be, and that re­flects di­rect­ly on the is­land of To­ba­go. So you know, it’s a mat­ter of us try­ing to get tourism back to where it needs to be. We’re not go­ing to ex­pect mir­a­cles.”

MacLean says crime in Trinidad was a prob­lem, but To­ba­go’s po­lice had done well to keep crime low on the is­land this year.

He al­so point­ed out that the ad­vi­so­ry came short­ly af­ter the State of Emer­gency was lift­ed on April 13, and said in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies were nev­er in­formed that it had end­ed.

As a re­sult, air­lines and tour op­er­a­tors were now hes­i­tant, and can­cel­la­tions be­gan with­in hours of the ad­vi­so­ry’s up­date.

“That came out that morn­ing; I got a phone call from a mem­ber of the as­so­ci­a­tion. They got their first can­cel­la­tion. So the fall­out is go­ing to be peo­ple, be­cause it’s al­most a do-not-trav­el. So when you have a do-not-trav­el to a des­ti­na­tion, it puts you in a very bad spot­light.

“To­ba­go is very safe. I know that our po­lice and all of that are deal­ing with it and mak­ing sure that the crim­i­nal el­e­ment is kept out of To­ba­go, and they’ve done a very good job for the year so far.”

MacLean said he had writ­ten to the new Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, Satyka­ma Ma­haraj, hop­ing to set up an ur­gent meet­ing this week.

He said To­ba­go need­ed to be mar­ket­ed as a safe and sep­a­rate des­ti­na­tion, or the is­land could lose even more vis­i­tors.

Calls to Min­is­ter Ma­haraj from Guardian Me­dia went unan­swered.