Bri­an Fron­tin, CEO of the Trinidad Ho­tels, Restau­rant and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, says T&T’s tourism in­dus­try is suf­fer­ing and it is time for the Gov­ern­ment to take ac­tion.

He said the in­dus­try has been in de­cline for sev­er­al years and the Gov­ern­ment has stood idly by while the tourist ar­rivals have plum­met­ed and ho­tels are on the brink of clo­sure.

He re­ferred to the de­cline in vis­i­tor ar­rivals in the 2017 and 2018 Car­ni­val sea­sons based on da­ta from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CSO).

A Plan­ning Min­istry re­lease on that da­ta stat­ed:

“The to­tal vis­i­tor ar­rivals to T&T were 33,873 per­sons, with Trinidad record­ing 31,877 and To­ba­go 1,996 for the pe­ri­od un­der re­view. When com­pared with the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od for 2017—Feb­ru­ary 10 to 28—da­ta showed a 3,575 or 9.5 per cent de­crease in vis­i­tor ar­rivals to T&T.”

Fron­tin said this in­for­ma­tion is con­sis­tent with in­for­ma­tion his as­so­ci­a­tion has been track­ing over the last two to three years.

“There has been a con­tin­u­ous de­cline in our in­ter­na­tion­al ar­rival ac­tiv­i­ty to T&T and those low­ered in­ter­na­tion­al ar­rivals have had a de­bil­i­tat­ing im­pact both on ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy and the en­tire tourism in­dus­try,” he said.

“Re­duced vis­i­tors means re­duced for­eign ex­change earn­ings. It means less oc­cu­pan­cy of ho­tel rooms and there­fore less tax­a­tion paid by ho­tels to the Gov­ern­ment. The knock on ef­fects af­fect all par­ties con­cerned.”

Ac­cord­ing to Fron­tin, one of the main rea­sons for the de­cline in ar­rivals to T&T is the clo­sure of the Trinidad De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC) and the non op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Tourism Trinidad Ltd Com­pa­ny (TTL). Al­though the TTL was in­cor­po­rat­ed in June 2017 and a board was ap­point­ed last Oc­to­ber, al­most one year lat­er no man­age­ment per­son­nel have been hired and a tourism pro­gramme for the coun­try has not been ex­e­cut­ed.

“It leads you to be­lieve that there was nev­er re­al­ly a plan to have it re­vamped, re­vised or con­sid­ered, as if you close the en­tire tourist board along with can­celling in­ter­na­tion­al con­tracts and noth­ing to re­place it with,” he said.

Fron­tin said that the Tourism Min­istry’s ces­sa­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al over­seas mar­ket­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Oc­to­ber 2016 has al­so hurt the in­dus­try.

“In all our key mar­kets like the Unit­ed States, Cana­da, UK and the Scan­di­na­vian coun­tries, we had a pub­lic re­la­tions or ad­ver­tis­ing firm in those coun­tries pro­mot­ing T&T—the best way that those per­sons deemed fit as they are fa­mil­iar with those mar­kets.

“Their con­tracts were brought to an end in Oc­to­ber 2016 and now, in 2018, there have been no re­place­ments. So the in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el­ling pub­lic no longer knows of T&T as a trav­el­ing des­ti­na­tion.”

Lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion

Fron­tin said the as­so­ci­a­tion com­mu­ni­cat­ed their con­cerns to the Min­istry of Tourism on more than one oc­ca­sion but there has been no re­sponse.

“For 2018 there were three oc­ca­sions that we wrote them. We is­sued a re­view of the tourism in­dus­try based on the da­ta pre­sent­ed to us in Feb­ru­ary 2018, the Min­istry of Tourism re­ceived a copy as well as the wider pub­lic and me­dia.

“In May 2018 we wrote the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Tourism with a se­ries of con­cerns re­lat­ed to these mat­ters and again no re­sponse. We al­so fol­lowed up in Au­gust 2018 with ad­di­tion­al con­cerns and asked for a re­sponse to our con­sis­tent re­quest for in­for­ma­tion.”

Al­though there has been no re­sponse from the Min­istry of Tourism, Fron­tin is op­ti­mistic that there will be com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the fu­ture.

He said the is­sues to be ad­dressed in­clude funds al­lo­cat­ed to the tourism sec­tor for this fis­cal year, the de­lay in set­ting up the TTL and how ho­tels’ tax con­tri­bu­tions are be­ing spent.

Ho­tels af­fect­ed

Fron­tin said the as­so­ci­a­tion has re­ceived neg­a­tive feed­back from mem­ber ho­tels on the tourism sec­tor’s de­cline and the “wor­ry­ing de­vel­op­ment” of many small­er prop­er­ties are sig­nal­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of clo­sure.

“There is not enough in­ter­na­tion­al ar­rival ac­tiv­i­ty for them to have a de­gree of oc­cu­pan­cy that al­lows them to stay open. There is al­so the im­pact of the un­reg­u­lat­ed Airbnb and oth­er shared econ­o­my mod­els for ac­com­mo­da­tion,” he said.

“These do not sub­scribe to the T&T Bu­reau of Stan­dards reg­u­la­tions and they are not con­tribut­ing tax dol­lars to the ac­tu­al econ­o­my. That un­fair ad­van­tage al­so hurts the small­er prop­er­ties who di­rect­ly com­pete with these shared home arrange­ments.”

He added that lo­cal hote­liers have been play­ing their part with their con­tri­bu­tion to the econ­o­my, so the Gov­ern­ment has no rea­son to cut al­lo­ca­tions to the sec­tor.

“We are clear that our hote­liers con­tribute over $50 to $60 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly in ho­tel tax con­tri­bu­tions which is 10 per cent of their room rev­enue. This is in ad­di­tion to cor­po­ra­tion tax of 25 per cent. It is a unique tax struc­ture which on­ly ap­plies to ho­tels and guest hous­es with over six rooms and if our con­tri­bu­tions are $60 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly then there is no ba­sis for mar­ket­ing mon­ey be­ing cut,” Fron­tin said.

Bud­get cuts

There has been a marked re­duc­tion in the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion by the Min­istry of Fi­nance to the Min­istry of Tourism for mar­ket­ing. The fig­ure fell from $50 mil­lion in 2015 to $33 mil­lion in 2016.

“In 2017, the Min­istry of Tourism was even in­ca­pable of spend­ing the $19 mil­lion it was pro­vid­ed and on­ly spent $8.5 mil­lion. For fis­cal year 2018, a $19 mil­lion amount was al­lo­cat­ed and we have had ab­solute si­lence on how much was spent for Trinidad, what has been spent on and what has been the suc­cess of the ex­pen­di­ture to date,” Fron­tin said.

He said the Gov­ern­ment has jus­ti­fied the cuts in al­lo­ca­tion to tourism by claim­ing the econ­o­my is do­ing poor­ly. How­ev­er, he ar­gues that mon­ey spent in the sec­tor is an in­vest­ment which leads to re­turns in the fu­ture.

Fron­tin warned the harm­ful ef­fects from the Gov­ern­ment’s bud­get cuts will re­sult in less tourists vis­it­ing the coun­try.

“There is an old adage, out of sight, out of mind. Lit­er­al­ly, the more that you are ab­sent from the trav­el­ling pop­u­la­tion in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and on so­cial me­dia, it is the less that peo­ple con­sid­er your des­ti­na­tion as an op­tion,” he said.