The Gov­ern­ment will spend $7 mil­lion in 2023 on a pro­gramme to up­grade Ari­api­ta Av­enue in Port-of-Spain, as part of the al­lo­ca­tion for Tourism.

It will in­clude the con­struc­tion of pub­lic wash­rooms, so­lar light­ing and an art wall.

The funds will go to what is known as the Ari­api­ta Av­enue En­hance­ment Project.

Ac­cord­ing to the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme for 2023, "Ari­api­ta Av­enue has grown in­to an en­ter­tain­ment hub in the city of Port-of-Spain and the Ari­api­ta Av­enue En­hance­ment Project seeks to en­hance the area in­to a pre­mier eco­nom­ic and leisure zone. It is en­vis­aged that the cre­ation of a vi­able and sus­tain­able prod­uct in the cap­i­tal city will pro­duce a sig­nif­i­cant, pos­i­tive eco­nom­ic im­pact through in­creased in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tor in­ter­est and im­proved do­mes­tic tourism."

It said that the sum of $7 mil­lion will be in­vest­ed in phase one of the project which will in­clude the fol­low­ing ac­tiv­i­ties:

en­hance­ment of the side­walk;

sup­ply and in­stal­la­tion of a cy­cling track;

land­scap­ing en­hance­ment;

in­stal­la­tion of shut­tle stop sheds;

in­stal­la­tion of garbage bins;

erec­tion of sig­nage and stat­ues;

in­stal­la­tion of hy­draulic bol­lards; and

con­struc­tion of pub­lic wash­rooms, bike racks, so­lar light­ing and art wall.

Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ment, The Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts

will al­so con­tin­ue to pur­sue the up­grad­ing and im­prove­ment of sites, at­trac­tions and beach­es through­out Trinidad.

It notes that up­grades will vary at each site ac­cord­ing to the as­sessed needs and pri­or­i­ties.

"Di­rec­tion­al and wel­come sig­nage will be in­stalled at sites and at­trac­tions and re­lat­ed in­fra­struc­ture us­ing stan­dard­ised de­signs," it said.

It added that the sum of $30 mil­lion will be in­vest­ed in fis­cal 2023 for the up­grade of the fol­low­ing sites:

Fort Aber­crom­by Her­itage Park;

Los Iros Vol­canic Park Fa­cil­i­ty;

Lopinot His­tor­i­cal Com­plex;

Riv­er Es­tate Mu­se­um and Wa­ter Wheel;

Fort Pic­ton;

Fort George;

Ves­signy Beach Beau­ti­fi­ca­tion;

Las Cuevas Beach Fa­cil­i­ty (up­grade and ex­pan­sion of the car park); and

Paramin Look­out (ad­di­tion­al works).

In ad­di­tion, fo­cus will be placed on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Ho­tel and Guest­house Room Stock Up­grade In­cen­tive Project (TAUP), a tourism de­vel­op­men­tal ini­tia­tive that al­lows prop­er­ty own­ers and op­er­a­tors to up­grade their prop­er­ties to a first-class lev­el to meet or ex­ceed the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stan­dard Re­quire­ments for Tourist Ac­com­mo­da­tion. "This will yield high­er qual­i­ty room stock and im­proved com­pet­i­tive­ness for the tourism op­er­a­tion in­clud­ing the pro­mo­tion of des­ti­na­tion Trinidad. The project fa­cil­i­tates the ex­e­cu­tion of up­grad­ing works with a re­bate of up to 40 per cent for prop­er­ties with one to five rooms and 50 per cent for prop­er­ties with six to 150 rooms."

It said that the in­cen­tive is geared to­wards re­cy­cling cap­i­tal funds to al­low the own­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re-in­vest the re­bates in­to con­tin­ued up­grade works.

In fis­cal 2023, the sum of $4 mil­lion will be in­vest­ed in the project.