Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Ho­tels, guest­hous­es and vil­las in To­ba­go are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing high oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els for the East­er week­end.

How­ev­er, tourism stake­hold­ers say con­sis­ten­cy is key as the in­dus­try can­not thrive sole­ly on hol­i­day spikes.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA) pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean said there are a few prop­er­ties at or near ca­pac­i­ty.

“The ho­tels and re­sorts are not full,” he added.

MacLean, gen­er­al man­ag­er of Blue Wa­ters Inn in Spey­side, said his prop­er­ty is at 81 per cent ca­pac­i­ty for Good Fri­day, 74 per cent for Glo­ria Sat­ur­day and 71 per cent for East­er Sun­day and Mon­day.

“That will go up a lit­tle with last-minute book­ings, but we should be full.”

He said most prop­er­ties should have al­ready been at 100 per cent.

“When you put on flights very late and ad­di­tion­al fer­ry ser­vice last minute, peo­ple have al­ready made a de­ci­sion to go else­where, whether it’s Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da, New York or Mi­a­mi. To­ba­go is still too dif­fi­cult to get to.”

He said hote­liers need con­sis­tent oc­cu­pan­cy to make enough rev­enue to rein­vest and al­so pay their bills.

“The on­ly way you go­ing to get long-term oc­cu­pan­cy is that you got­ta have flights com­ing in­to the is­land.

“Peo­ple who plan, plan based on get­ting their fam­i­lies here on con­firmed tick­ets.”

MacLean said the win­ter pe­ri­od, par­tic­u­lar­ly De­cem­ber to Jan­u­ary, is usu­al­ly peak pe­ri­od for hote­liers with week­ends at 50-80 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy.

For off-peak week­ends, he said oc­cu­pan­cy dwin­dles to ze­ro to 20 per cent.

Glob­al ten­sions help­ing is­land’s tourism

MacLean said the mil­i­tary con­flict in the Mid­dle East as well as geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions are giv­ing To­ba­go a bump in vis­i­tors.

“We have got book­ings based on what’s go­ing on in those ar­eas. We have a cou­ple with a child here who were go­ing to Bali and they were sup­posed to fly through one of the coun­tries ex­pe­ri­enc­ing prob­lems and they changed and came To­ba­go. We have two peo­ple here who were go­ing else­where and they came here be­cause of the war.”

A re­cent Dai­ly Mail ar­ti­cle re­vealed search­es for To­ba­go in the Unit­ed King­dom had jumped by around 70 per cent ow­ing to the tur­moil in the Gulf.

MacLean said the tense re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Unit­ed States and Cana­da (ow­ing to the im­po­si­tion of tar­iffs by US leader Don­ald Trump) is al­so dri­ving many Cana­di­ans to To­ba­go.

“The Cana­di­an mar­ket, we have seen an in­crease based on what’s hap­pen­ing be­tween the US and Cana­da and they are look­ing for some­where else to va­ca­tion.”

He said the tourism in­dus­try could re­al­ly cap­i­talise if des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing is fund­ed prop­er­ly and ex­e­cut­ed.

Natasha Mann-Nedd, ad­min­is­tra­tor at Sandy Point Beach Club, said book­ings are high, but oc­cu­pan­cy would drop dras­ti­cal­ly af­ter East­er.

She said the prop­er­ty counts on East­er, Ju­ly/Au­gust and Christ­mas for do­mes­tic tourism.

She said hote­liers are wary about a re­port­ed pro­pos­al by Caribbean Air­lines to re­move the sub­sidy on the do­mes­tic air­bridge.

“It will def­i­nite­ly have a neg­a­tive im­pact on do­mes­tic tourism. Peo­ple will say the fer­ry is avail­able, but not every­body could stom­ach that three-hour trip,” she said.

She be­lieves Tri­nis would look to va­ca­tion else­where if a To­ba­go va­ca­tion be­comes too ex­pen­sive.

Slow sales at Store Bay

At Store Bay Beach Fa­cil­i­ty yes­ter­day, a string of ven­dors com­plained about slow sales.

Karen John, who braids hair, sells trin­kets, cloth­ing and oth­er items, said peo­ple are com­ing to the fa­cil­i­ty but not shop­ping.

“We an­tic­i­pate this every year to make a nice prof­it so it is im­por­tant for peo­ple to come out and shop,” she said.

She said for the past few years, Trinida­di­ans have dom­i­nat­ed the vis­i­tors at Store Bay.

She ap­pealed to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to open the new air­port and at­tract more in­ter­na­tion­al flights.

Mean­while, the own­er of Sylvia’s Food Place told Guardian Me­dia the num­ber of vis­i­tors is low com­pared to pre­vi­ous years.

“Long time we used to see more peo­ple for East­er. A time like now, here would have been like Car­ni­val, but not again. Every­thing just slow. Peo­ple say­ing it is be­cause of the econ­o­my.”

She said cus­tomers are even hag­gling for dis­counts.

“They watch­ing the dol­lar. They might see some­thing for $50 and say, ‘Could you give it to me for less?’”

Alvin Dou­glas, own­er of the dive shop at Store Bay, said East­er is not a peak pe­ri­od for div­ing. How­ev­er, his es­tab­lish­ment sells sun­glass­es and oth­er beach ac­ces­sories.

“What you gonna have is peo­ple wan­na go swim­ming or snorkelling,” he said.

“If we don’t cap­ture the East­er pe­ri­od, the rest of the year is dif­fi­cult.”

He said Trinida­di­ans are keep­ing his busi­ness afloat and not­ed he has suf­fered loss of busi­ness be­cause of un­avail­able flights.

Dou­glas said when he start­ed the dive shop 20 years ago, for­eign­ers made up 70-80 per cent of his clients.

He said this has now re­versed with 80 per cent of his clients be­ing Tri­nis. He said any re­moval of the air­bridge sub­sidy would be cat­a­stroph­ic.

“I think it is gonna dev­as­tate the tourism in­dus­try ... When you elim­i­nate the sub­sidy, it is gonna be dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to fly as of­ten as they do.

“To­ba­go is al­ready un­der a strain. It is a do­mes­tic ne­ces­si­ty to have in­ter is­land trans­port.”

Dou­glas said the sub­sidy should be re­duced in phas­es if the in­tent is to even­tu­al­ly re­move it.

UK vis­i­tor Nigel John­son, whose wife is Trinida­di­an, said in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers are al­ready ac­cus­tomed pay­ing high air­fares for short flights.

He be­lieves an in­crease of the do­mes­tic air­bridge fare would not dis­suade for­eign­ers.

“As a tourist com­ing from Eu­rope, the price I pay now is very rea­son­able, but I sus­pect for lo­cals it is the right price. I can trav­el in Eu­rope on a short flight of an hour or so, and I pay a lot more. I would pay sev­er­al hun­dred pounds for a flight. When I come here and pay $400 for a re­turn, that is in­cred­i­ble good val­ue.”

He said it would be “fair and rea­son­able” for for­eign­ers to pay the full fare and cit­i­zens to re­ceive the sub­sidy.

“My wife is Tri­ni, so I sus­pect she would want the lo­cal rate,” he said while chuck­ling.

US vis­i­tors Sarah and Liz, who hail from New York, are among a par­ty of 16 va­ca­tion­ing on the is­land.

They told Guardian Me­dia they are ex­cit­ed to be here and came specif­i­cal­ly to see the goat races in Buc­coo on Tues­day.

“We just got here to­day, but every­one is so friend­ly and look at the wa­ter, it is beau­ti­ful, The wa­ter is crys­tal clear, and turquoise blue.”

They said the des­ti­na­tion re­mains an af­ford­able op­tion and they had been plan­ning this trip for the last nine months.