The Trinidad and To­ba­go In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (TTI­TOA) has raised con­cern over what it de­scribes as an un­bal­anced por­tray­al of the coun­try in a re­cent ar­ti­cle pub­lished by The Tele­graph in the Unit­ed King­dom.

The ar­ti­cle ti­tled “From tourism to ter­ror: The Caribbean is­land torn apart by gangs and guns”, paints Trinidad and To­ba­go as a na­tion over­whelmed by vi­o­lence—a de­pic­tion TTI­TOA be­lieves fails to re­flect the lived ex­pe­ri­ence of thou­sands of vis­i­tors each year.

TTI­TOA Pres­i­dent Lor­raine Pouchet said the ar­ti­cle “does a dis­ser­vice to the depth, com­plex­i­ty, and vi­bran­cy of our twin-is­land na­tion.”

“While we ac­knowl­edge the se­ri­ous so­cial is­sues fac­ing some ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties, the ar­ti­cle fails to re­flect the over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ences of the thou­sands of vis­i­tors who con­tin­ue to ex­plore our is­lands each year in safe­ty and won­der,” she said.

Pouchet point­ed to the cul­tur­al rich­ness and di­ver­si­ty that de­fine the twin-is­land des­ti­na­tion—from Car­ni­val and culi­nary tra­di­tions to eco-tourism and her­itage tours—as rea­sons vis­i­tors con­tin­ue to be drawn to its shores.

TTI­TOA al­so stressed that its mem­bers work in close part­ner­ship with lo­cal and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies to en­sure guest safe­ty and well-or­gan­ised tour ex­pe­ri­ences.

“We rec­om­mend that prospec­tive vis­i­tors con­tact li­censed, pro­fes­sion­al tour op­er­a­tors for their trav­el plans,” Pouchet stat­ed. “These part­ners are best po­si­tioned to of­fer per­son­alised, well-or­gan­ised, and se­cure ex­pe­ri­ences that re­flect the true spir­it of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that crime and so­cial un­rest re­main a re­al­i­ty in some parts of the coun­try—as they are in many places around the world—the as­so­ci­a­tion called on in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia to re­port with greater bal­ance and con­text.

“High­light­ing iso­lat­ed events with­out ac­knowl­edg­ing the vast ma­jor­i­ty of safe, en­rich­ing, and joy­ful ex­pe­ri­ences avail­able to trav­ellers does not serve the pub­lic in­ter­est,” the state­ment said.

TTI­TOA reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able, re­spon­si­ble tourism and ex­tend­ed a warm in­vi­ta­tion to glob­al trav­ellers to ex­pe­ri­ence “the warmth, cre­ativ­i­ty, and au­then­tic­i­ty” of Trinidad and To­ba­go.