Sec­re­tary of the Di­vi­sion of Tourism and Trans­port in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine said the 2015-2016 cruise ship sea­son, which end­ed on May 3, was "one of the most suc­cess­ful cruise sea­sons in the his­to­ry of To­ba­go."

She was told a Post Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil me­dia brief­ing at the Calder Hall Ad­min­is­tra­tive Com­plex that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 106,000 per­sons had come ashore–the largest num­ber to ar­rive in To­ba­go on cruise ships. She said pas­sen­gers spent on av­er­age US$74 US a day.

David­son-Ce­les­tine con­grat­u­lat­ed taxi dri­vers, tour op­er­a­tors, and port staff who "col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly (came) to­geth­er to en­sure that the cruise sea­son is a suc­cess­ful one."

"Our es­ti­mat­ed cal­cu­la­tions sug­gest that for that sea­son alone, about $52.4 mil­lion was spent on the is­land dur­ing the par­tic­u­lar sea­son.

"I'm pleased that there was a trick­le-down ef­fect, and so you find that quite a bit of monies went to the small-man–the maxi and the taxi dri­vers, the restau­ra­teurs, the craft ven­dors, the street ven­dors, those who are rent­ing bi­cy­cles, and those who have bars, and so on," she said

David­son-Ce­les­tine said 250 to 300 pas­sen­gers flew in by char­tered plane from Ger­many to To­ba­go bi-week­ly to join cruise ships at the Scar­bor­ough Port.A sim­i­lar num­ber dis­em­barked from cruise ships to fly back to Ger­many. She said the rev­enue earned would help stim­u­late the is­land's econ­o­my.