Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Tourism Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett said her di­vi­sion is work­ing close­ly with stake­hold­ers to at­tract re­turn vis­i­tors to To­ba­go.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day at the 98th an­nu­al Buc­coo Goat and Crab Race Fes­ti­val, Hack­ett em­pha­sised that fes­ti­vals and events must be pro­mot­ed well in ad­vance to al­low tourists suf­fi­cient time to plan their trips.

A large crowd gath­ered at the Buc­coo In­te­grat­ed Fa­cil­i­ty to en­joy the street pa­rade and nov­el­ty races.

Hack­ett said the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion Lim­it­ed (TF­CL) has been tasked with cap­i­tal­is­ing on “the best East­er post-COVID-19” by pro­mot­ing oth­er events on the is­land.

The com­mis­sion opened a booth on Mon­day at the Carn­bee/Mt Pleas­ant Sports and Fam­i­ly Day to show­case the Her­itage Fes­ti­val (Ju­ly–Au­gust), the Blue Food Fes­ti­val (Oc­to­ber 18), and To­ba­go Car­ni­val (Oc­to­ber 30–No­vem­ber 1). The booth was al­so present in Buc­coo, sell­ing mer­chan­dise in­clud­ing jer­seys, cups, key chains, bags, and hats.

“The in­ten­tion is to link the fes­ti­vals and events and give vis­i­tors a valid rea­son to re­turn as soon as pos­si­ble,” Hack­ett said.

In her fea­ture ad­dress, Hack­ett de­scribed each vis­i­tor as an un­of­fi­cial am­bas­sador, urg­ing them to share the unique at­trac­tions To­ba­go has to of­fer.

“I think we have been pro­mot­ing the is­land more,” she told the me­dia.

“I think we have re­al­ly been push­ing—through ef­forts with the To­ba­go Tourism Agency, TF­CL, and by syn­er­gis­ing, not op­er­at­ing in si­los. That is one of the man­dates I gave to our spe­cial-pur­pose com­pa­nies. You can­not wait for an event to pro­mote it. You can­not pro­mote an event with­out pro­mot­ing the des­ti­na­tion.

“I think that is what we have not been do­ing—push­ing the is­land as a des­ti­na­tion and hav­ing the fes­ti­vals as a byprod­uct.”

Hack­ett said the fo­cus will shift to the is­land’s east next month with two ma­jor sport­ing events in Char­lot­teville: the To­ba­go In­ter­na­tion­al Game Fish­ing Tour­na­ment (May 12–16), fol­lowed by the Døds Div­ing League World Tour on May 23.

She added that To­ba­go will be pro­mot­ing not on­ly its beau­ti­ful beach­es but al­so eco-tourism and sport tourism.

The Bethes­da/Les Coteaux rep­re­sen­ta­tive not­ed that the is­land has cap­i­talised on glob­al events, such as ten­sions in the Mid­dle East, to in­crease vis­i­bil­i­ty and keep To­ba­go “on peo­ple’s lips.”

A re­cent Dai­ly Mail ar­ti­cle re­port­ed that search­es for To­ba­go have risen by 70 per cent since the Gulf con­flict.

On the po­ten­tial re­moval of the air­bridge sub­sidy, Hack­ett was firm that it must re­main.

“As cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, as tax­pay­ing cit­i­zens, and be­cause there is free­dom of move­ment that should be en­joyed by all, we val­ue and ap­pre­ci­ate that sub­sidy. We un­der­stand the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of gov­ern­ment and the THA to ad­vo­cate for its re­ten­tion,” she said.

Hack­ett added that if the pro­pos­al is for on­ly in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors to pay the full fare, that would be a sep­a­rate dis­cus­sion.

“We will have to ex­plore oth­er ways to ad­dress a bailout for CAL. We val­ue the sub­sidised rate. The THA, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with cen­tral gov­ern­ment, will do every­thing pos­si­ble to en­sure that any de­ci­sion re­gard­ing the bailout does not af­fect the pock­ets of cit­i­zens of T&T.”