An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

A call has been made by tourism stake­hold­ers for more fund­ing to be al­lo­cat­ed to the sec­tor in the up­com­ing bud­get.

On the Par­lia­ment web­site, the bud­get al­lo­ca­tion for the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts is $405,836,250.

For fis­cal 2023, $50 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to up­grade tourists’ sites and at­trac­tions and to mar­ket Trinidad via Trinidad Tourism Ltd.

The Busi­ness Guardian spoke to sev­er­al stake­hold­ers on what they would like to see al­lo­cat­ed to the tourism sec­tor come Mon­day, Oc­to­ber 2, when Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert presents the bud­get in the Low­er House.

Pres­i­dent of the Small Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Own­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go (STAOTT) Denise Ale­ong said more fund­ing must be giv­en to the Tourism Min­istry in the bud­get so that dif­fer­ent bod­ies with­in the sec­tor can ben­e­fit from more sur­plus.

“More fund­ing needs to be al­lo­cat­ed to mar­ket Trinidad, es­pe­cial­ly as a des­ti­na­tion. When it comes to tourism in Trinidad, for the small and mi­cro-tourism op­er­a­tors, we are a for­got­ten bunch. The on­ly thing they tend to be fo­cus­ing on is train­ing and noth­ing else. We are not get­ting much sup­port with mar­ket­ing, and we are not get­ting much as­sis­tance with up­grad­ing stan­dards,” Ale­ong stressed.

How­ev­er, she said she was ad­vised that in the new fis­cal year, fund­ing will be al­lo­cat­ed to the Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Up­grade Pro­gramme, which is fund­ed by the gov­ern­ment.

Ale­ong said the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor is fo­cus­ing on re­cov­ery af­ter be­ing dealt a huge blow dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“Re­cent­ly the gov­ern­ment did a tax amnesty and I think that should be af­ford­ed to our sec­tor, along with a con­ces­sion for the small ac­com­mo­da­tion in­dus­try, be­cause even though the larg­er ho­tels had oth­er types of busi­ness op­er­a­tions, dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, our sec­tor was com­plete­ly shut down. Our cash flow is not as healthy as we would like it to be, so, there­fore, there is a strain in pay­ing tax­es,” she em­pha­sised.

An­oth­er pol­i­cy the head of STAOTT would like to see im­ple­ment­ed by the Gov­ern­ment is cre­at­ing poli­cies and reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies for the sec­tor.

Ac­cord­ing to Ale­ong, Airbnb va­ca­tion homes and con­dos should be reg­u­lat­ed, as is be­ing done in the Unit­ed States, be­cause this mod­el is af­fect­ing the small ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly com­ing out of the pan­dem­ic.

Tour guides

Wen­dell Grif­fith, Tour Guides As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, said his for­ev­er bud­get wish list, is that every Gov­ern­ment that comes in­to of­fice, should take a greater in­ter­est in the tourism in­dus­try.

“We have been de­vel­op­ing tourism since the 1950s and we are in 2023 and still de­vel­op­ing. My wish is that they find some­one tru­ly in­ter­est­ed in tourism and for the gov­ern­ment to put mon­ey in­to the in­dus­try, so we can see the in­fra­struc­ture that we need to high­light tourism across the world. You can go to any of the is­lands and see their tourism prod­ucts be­ing mar­ket­ed and we should be in that same brack­et as we have a lot to of­fer,” Grif­fith lament­ed.

As it per­tains to tours, Grif­fith in­di­cat­ed that busi­ness is now pick­ing up af­ter the pan­dem­ic, as lo­cals are look­ing for new things to do.

With heat be­ing at the fore­front, as a re­sult of cli­mate change, the as­so­ci­a­tion head said step­ping up on wilder­ness first aid train­ing is im­por­tant, as adap­ta­tion is the key.

Syd­ney Valere - Pres­i­dent of the T&T Tourist Trans­port Ser­vice wants to see an eas­i­er method for ap­proval of the con­ces­sion for tourism ve­hi­cles and a high­er bud­get for the min­istry so that stake­hold­ers can ben­e­fit more.

Cruise in­dus­try

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Car­val­ho’s Agen­cies Charles Car­val­ho said the op­er­a­tors would like to see a new cruise port.

“The cur­rent lo­ca­tion at the Port of Port of Spain has out­lived its abil­i­ty to ac­com­mo­date the new age ves­sels and is lim­it­ed in the num­ber of ves­sels we can safe­ly ac­com­mo­date at any giv­en time. With a new and ded­i­cat­ed cruise port, we can go af­ter much larg­er cruise ships and have more calls.

“What is al­so need­ed are some fu­el­ing and head tax in­cen­tives. Those in­cen­tives can work de­pend­ing on the guar­an­teed num­ber of calls from cruise lines. This is how it works in oth­er Caribbean des­ti­na­tions,” Car­val­ho re­vealed.

Im­prove­ment need­ed for the tourism sec­tor

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) con­sult­ed with its mem­ber, the TT In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, re­cent­ly to de­ter­mine the ma­jor out­stand­ing is­sues plagu­ing the tourism sec­tor as well as to pro­pose vi­able rec­om­men­da­tions for the de­vel­op­ment of the sec­tor.

In a re­port last week, the TTC­SI said grant fund­ing is need­ed to strength­en the in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty of the In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors’ As­so­ci­a­tion and for tour op­er­a­tors to pro­mote the coun­try as a des­ti­na­tion at trade fairs in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“The as­so­ci­a­tion would like to see more ef­fort in­to the mar­ket­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go tourism. Oth­er coun­tries man­age their im­age very well. Trinidad and To­ba­go needs to make its peo­ple feel safe first then tourists will feel safe to vis­it the coun­try. Last­ly, there needs to be more pub­lic/pri­vate sec­tor round­table dis­cus­sions re­quired with tourism stake­hold­ers. There is a lack of in­clu­sion and con­sul­ta­tion with the In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion,” said the body rep­re­sent­ing the ser­vices sec­tor.

The TTC­SI not­ed oth­er mea­sures to stim­u­late the growth of the tourism sec­tor, should in­clude the re­view of oner­ous stamp du­ty charged on ho­tels and sim­i­lar large “res­i­den­tial” prop­er­ties as a way to stim­u­late the tourism sec­tor.

“The stim­u­la­tion of the tourism sec­tor will have di­rect cost ben­e­fits to Trinidad man­u­fac­tur­ers since they sup­ply the bulk of the goods and ser­vices to the tourism in­dus­try in both Trinidad and To­ba­go. Re­ten­tion of the tourism dol­lar in the T&T econ­o­my is as high as 70 cents in every $1,” the re­port de­tailed.

Al­so, im­me­di­ate im­prove­ment is need­ed in fis­cal in­cen­tives for For­eign Di­rect In­vest­ment (FDI) to com­pete with those with­in the re­gion. Cur­rent­ly, Trinidad is not of­fer­ing at­trac­tive in­cen­tives, and land li­cens­es for To­ba­go are al­so a de­ter­rent.

Along with cre­at­ing in­cen­tives to at­tract re­sort de­vel­op­ers from be­yond the tra­di­tion­al mar­kets.

“For ex­am­ple, look at re­sort de­vel­op­ers from Spain who will tar­get the Latin Amer­i­can mar­ket.

Im­prov­ing yacht­ing sec­tor

TTC­SI fur­ther high­light­ed that the Yacht Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (YSATT) needs more land in the Ch­aguara­mas area (lim­it­ed to on­ly 2.2 square miles at present) for ex­pan­sion and growth sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

“Per­mit the free move­ment of yachts be­tween bays in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which is per­mit­ted in oth­er Caribbean coun­tries with thriv­ing yacht­ing sec­tors. Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment to fa­cil­i­tate for­eign yachts as in Grena­da, St. Vin­cent, An­tigua, Guyana, St. Lu­cia, St. Kitts, St. Maarten and in every oth­er Caribbean Is­land,” the re­port con­clud­ed.