To­ba­go’s tourism in­dus­try is rid­ing a wave of strong vis­i­tor in­ter­est and high oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els, even as the coun­try con­tin­ues to grap­ple with a State of Emer­gency.

Tourism Sec­re­tary Tashia Bur­ris said that while the first SoE raised con­cerns among in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, To­ba­go ad­just­ed its ap­proach the sec­ond time around by shift­ing to a strat­e­gy of “pos­i­tive press.”

“Based on what an SoE en­tails, there’s a lot of cau­tion that you ap­ply. Be­cause even though the in­for­ma­tion that we got the first time didn’t re­al­ly in­di­cate that there was an is­sue with To­ba­go, we would suf­fer fall­out from that with our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners,” Bur­ris ex­plained.

She said this time the di­vi­sion piv­ot­ed, en­sur­ing To­ba­go was seen as “still safe” and “still open for busi­ness.”

Over the last two months, she not­ed, the is­land has ben­e­fit­ed from heavy pro­mo­tion linked to the To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val, in­ter­na­tion­al in­flu­encer Nicholas Nu­van’s vis­it, and a cul­tur­al show­case in Times Square, New York.

“All our pro­duc­tions were very well at­tend­ed. Per­sons who at­tend­ed gave us ten out of ten out of ten for what we were able to put to­geth­er. Then we had Nicholas Nu­van, an in­flu­encer, vis­it­ing To­ba­go. That was on pur­pose,” Bur­ris said.

She de­scribed the Times Square en­gage­ment for To­ba­go Day as a turn­ing point, with the is­land “front and cen­tre on the big screen, show­ing beau­ti­ful, un­spoiled, un­touched, undis­cov­ered.”

The re­sults, she said, are vis­i­ble on the ground. “You can’t get a tick­et to come to To­ba­go. The reef boats are go­ing full every day. You have ho­tels that are re­port­ing very high oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els. Bars are full, traf­fic on the road, peo­ple spend­ing mon­ey. So it means that our do­mes­tic sec­tor is very, very much alive.”

The THA Sec­re­tary ad­mit­ted, though, that the biggest chal­lenge re­mains air­lift, with both do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al de­mand out­pac­ing avail­able seats. She said dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing, and she hopes “be­fore the end of the year, we should have some con­crete so­lu­tions.”

She al­so wel­comed the ad­di­tion­al do­mes­tic flight re­cent­ly added to the route. “It has al­lowed per­sons who, you know, had a long day do­ing busi­ness in Trinidad, to still be able to come home ba­si­cal­ly with­in the same 24-hour pe­ri­od. So it has def­i­nite­ly helped me a lot,” she said, adding that flights are run­ning close to 100 per cent full.

Look­ing ahead, Bur­ris said To­ba­go’s Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val is ex­pect­ed to build on the mo­men­tum. “All of this pos­i­tive press is go­ing to snow­ball in­to the best vi­sion of the To­ba­go Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val yet. We have some sur­pris­es in store,” she added.

On the new ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal, she said that while the fa­cil­i­ty is com­plete, staffing and op­er­a­tional readi­ness are still out­stand­ing. “An air­port is not a par­lour. You know, it’s not about just stock­ing it with wa­ter and sweets, and then you open your doors and start to sell. An air­port takes a lot of man­pow­er and re­sources to op­er­a­tionalise.”

She said she is hope­ful the ter­mi­nal can be opened “be­fore the end of the year,” but stressed that To­ba­go must be ready to re­ceive the ex­pect­ed in­flux once it is op­er­a­tionalised.

For now, Bur­ris be­lieves the pos­i­tive press strat­e­gy is prov­ing its worth. “It has not been just about talk­ing about the safe­ty of To­ba­go, but show­ing peo­ple we’re out­side hav­ing a time. And that has been the strat­e­gy that has worked for us.”