In prepa­ra­tion for the an­tic­i­pat­ed re­open­ing of T&T’s bor­ders and to max­imise pub­lic health best prac­tices in the tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor, Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed (TTL), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA), host­ed a Train the Train­er We­bi­nar ti­tled “COVID-19 Health Guide­lines for Re­open­ing the Tourism Sec­tor & the Tourism Health In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem”.

In a re­lease TTL in­di­cat­ed that the train­ing was de­signed for a wide range of tourism stake­hold­ers, where it pro­vid­ed a com­pre­hen­sive un­der­stand­ing of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic as well as pro­tec­tion and safe­ty mea­sures.

It added that the train­ing is a cru­cial step in the over­all prepa­ra­tion for even­tu­al re­open­ing of the is­land to in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers.

Ac­cord­ing to the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Tourism Trinidad (Act­ing), Hei­di Alert: “This train­ing was es­sen­tial for the in­dus­try to emerge stronger and more sus­tain­ably from COVID-19. At this time, we must act de­ci­sive­ly to re­store trav­el con­fi­dence in a safe and re­spon­si­ble man­ner.”

She added that the train­ing ses­sion sends a clear mes­sage that the busi­ness­es and the in­dus­try care deeply about the health and safe­ty of both cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors.

Alert not­ed that the CARPHA train­ing com­ple­ments the wider tourism re­silience train­ing that TTL has en­gaged COSTATT to de­liv­er to trans­port op­er­a­tors, tourist at­trac­tions, ho­tels, tour op­er­a­tors and food and bev­er­age fa­cil­i­ties to pre­pare for when the time be­comes ap­pro­pri­ate to re­open bor­ders and once again wel­come vis­i­tors.

“This re­tool­ing of the tourism sec­tor will give Des­ti­na­tion Trinidad an edge in its mar­ket­ing ac­tiv­i­ties,” said Alert.

Fur­ther­more, Alert ex­pressed TTL’S ex­cite­ment to to be work­ing more close­ly with CARPHA to roll out to the in­dus­try, the on­line Tourism Health In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem (THiS) that will make suc­cess­ful tourism or­ga­ni­za­tions el­i­gi­ble to re­ceive the Caribbean Trav­el Health As­sur­ance (CTHA) Stamp.

She ar­tic­u­lat­ed that this would add fur­ther as­sur­ance to trav­ellers about their com­mit­ment to their health safe­ty.

Alert ex­plained: “The ad­van­tage of this Stamp is that it pro­vides mea­sur­able and ver­i­fi­able recog­ni­tion that tourism busi­ness­es are im­ple­ment­ing the rec­om­mend­ed proac­tive COVID-19 health mon­i­tor­ing and safe­ty mea­sures and is, there­fore, an ex­cel­lent mar­ket­ing tool”.

TTL not­ed that one of the key mes­sages from the vir­tu­al train­ing was that tourism stake­hold­ers must de­liv­er sim­ple, easy, healthy, and safe ex­pe­ri­ences for all vis­i­tors to Des­ti­na­tion Trinidad as we nav­i­gate through the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Over two hun­dred (200) tourism stake­hold­ers took part in this pro­gram on Oc­to­ber 14th.

The state­ment ar­tic­u­lat­ed that tourism prac­ti­tion­ers were briefed re­gard­ing best prac­tices to be im­ple­ment­ed to re­store the con­fi­dence of the trav­ellers through re­gion­al safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols de­signed to re­duce risks in each step of the tourism val­ue chain.

These pro­to­cols in­clude the im­ple­men­ta­tion of check pro­ce­dures where ap­pro­pri­ate, in­clud­ing tem­per­a­ture scans, test­ing, phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, en­hanced fre­quen­cy of clean­ing and the pro­vi­sion of hy­giene kits for safe air trav­el, hos­pi­tal­i­ty ser­vices and safe events.