Sean Nero

The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment (PP) has set its sights on de­vel­op­ing the pop­u­lar Ari­api­ta Av­enue strip in Wood­brook, which is un­der the con­trol of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment-led (PNM) Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, to be­come an es­sen­tial part of this coun­try's emerg­ing tourism sec­tor.

The lo­ca­tion is con­sid­ered to be a key area for ex­ploita­tion in the re-de­sign and ul­ti­mate roll out of prod­ucts that T&T will of­fer to the world. Ju­liana Boodram, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Tourism Min­istry, said Gov­ern­ment was look­ing at re­vi­tal­is­ing the quaint stretch of restau­rants and lim­ing spots along Ari­api­ta Av­enue in Wood­brook.

De­liv­er­ing a speech on be­half of line min­is­ter Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith at the May 9 meet­ing of US and Cana­di­an trav­el and on­line tour op­er­a­tors at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad, she said the project, to­geth­er with a num­ber of oth­er restora­tion and ur­ban re­gen­er­a­tion projects, was in­tend­ed to com­ple­ment a new re­nais­sance for the city as the re­gion's cul­tur­al cap­i­tal.

Fif­teen tour op­er­a­tors from Ex­pe­dia, Or­b­itz and Trav­e­loc­i­ty were in T&T last week at the be­hest of the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny to par­tic­i­pate in tours aimed at re-in­tro­duc­ing and re-en­gag­ing them in the de­lights of T&T. Boodram said this coun­try must be pre­sent­ed as much more than a trop­i­cal get­away if it is to achieve suc­cess as a trav­el des­ti­na­tion.

"In a tourism-de­pen­dent area such as the Caribbean that wel­comed an es­ti­mat­ed 23.8 mil­lion tourists in 2011, the suc­cess of T&T as a tourist des­ti­na­tion de­pends to a large ex­tent on our ca­pac­i­ty to dif­fer­en­ti­ate and re-in­vent our­selves.

"It is time that we in T&T come on board with the all-per­vad­ing tech­nol­o­gy to reach our cus­tomers in a mean­ing­ful way. Our cus­tomers are the new jour­nal­ists as they speak to each oth­er, share ex­pe­ri­ences and cam­paign across the world wide web," she said.

"No speech that I can de­liv­er can trans­mit the unique ex­pe­ri­ences that T&T of­fers. The face of tourism has changed with the rapid ad­vent of glob­al­i­sa­tion and in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy. As trav­ellers be­come more tech­nol­o­gy-savvy, the In­ter­net is an over­rid­ing fac­tor in the con­sumer trav­el de­ci­sion," said Boodram.

She added: "By the end of 2011, over 85 per cent of all mo­bile hand­sets glob­al­ly pro­vid­ed ac­cess to the In­ter­net and eight tril­lion SMS text mes­sages were sent across the world. "Trav­ellers now build their hol­i­days through their phones with spe­cial­ly-de­signed ap­pli­ca­tions or 'apps' which pro­vide ser­vices rang­ing from tourist in­for­ma­tion to check­ing-in ser­vices and itin­er­ary plan­ning. Top world-class des­ti­na­tions are pre­view­ing their new ad­ver­tis­ing cam­paigns on­line through Face­book."

Cit­ing the con­nect­ed se­ries of events on the tech­no­log­i­cal front, Boodram said the min­istry was in­vest­ing fur­ther in cre­at­ing a mix of vi­brant and di­verse events through­out the year, rang­ing from com­mu­ni­ty culi­nary ac­tiv­i­ties to sports and cul­tur­al events, geared to­wards height­en­ing vis­i­tor ar­rivals and do­mes­tic tourism. She said the pro­posed rich cal­en­dar of events would stir the blend of of­fer­ings that will dif­fer­en­ti­ate this coun­try from oth­er in the re­gion.

"We will con­tin­ue de­vel­op­ing oth­er the­mat­ic sec­tors in the near fu­ture, in­clud­ing agro-tourism, eco-tourism, med­ical tourism and sports tourism. "We have al­so made fur­ther in­roads in im­prov­ing our air­lift ca­pa­bil­i­ty. Our na­tion­al air­line, Caribbean Air­lines, will soon be re-com­menc­ing its Lon­don route to cap­i­talise on the Lon­don Olympics and the ever grow­ing Caribbean di­as­po­ra, and we are al­so ex­plor­ing air link­ages with In­dia," she said.