Michelle Loubon

Tourism min­is­ter Joseph Ross says Queen Eliz­a­beth II's ar­rival to T&T au­gurs well for the coun­try's in­ter­na­tion­al im­age. He said about 4,000 vis­i­tors are ex­pect­ed here. The Queen, 83, who is the Head of the Com­mon­wealth, is in town for a State vis­it, will open the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) at the Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts to­day. She is ac­com­pa­nied by her hus­band Prince Philip, 88, the Duke of Ed­in­burgh and an en­tourage. Her last stop in the Caribbean was in Bermu­da. Crit­i­cal is­sues, such as cli­mate change, ahead of the ma­jor Unit­ed Na­tions meet­ing in Copen­hagen, Den­mark, are ex­pect­ed to be dis­cussed. Ross said: "We can­not put a price on the Queen's vis­it. This is her third (to this coun­try). It is an in­valu­able ad­ver­tise­ment for the coun­try. If we were to put a price tag on it, we can­not.

A small coun­try is host­ing such a big event and the Queen. "The ho­tels are full. The city is buzzing. It is a suc­cess sto­ry," added Ross. To date, Ross said, even the air­port was spruced up, and use was made of the south ter­mi­nal in time for the ma­jor sym­po­sium. Apart from the much an­tic­i­pat­ed vis­it of the British roy­als, he al­so said a tourism bu­reau had been set up in the IFC Build­ing, ad­ja­cent to the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel. "A lot of peo­ple are ex­press­ing in­ter­est in host­ing con­fer­ences and learn­ing more about T&T." The crick­et mu­se­um, which was opened on Wednes­day night at Queen's Park Oval, al­so came in for tremen­dous ku­dos from con­nois­seurs of the "beau­ti­ful game".

Ar­rival

All eyes were locked up­on the British Air­ways plane when it land­ed on the tar­mac at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. Me­dia per­son­nel de­scend­ed a flight of stairs at the back of the plane. Then, the door opened. Decked in a green hat, com­ple­ment­ed by a mint green dress, the Queen ap­peared at the top of the stairs. She wore black shoes. A rope of white pearls and a brooch en­hanced her el­e­gant ap­pear­ance. With her spouse in tow, she pro­ceed­ed to de­scend dain­ti­ly. There to meet her were Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards and his wife Dr Jean Ramjohn-Richards; Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and his wife Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Hazel Man­ning; and Chief of De­fence Staff Ed­mund Dil­lon and oth­er dig­ni­taries.

Mov­ing along on the red car­pet, she pro­ceed­ed to mount the podi­um. The Na­tion­al An­them was played. The British An­them was played. Then, she in­spect­ed the Guard of Ho­n­our. Af­ter, she shook hands with mem­bers of the Cab­i­net. A 21-gun salute was heard to the right of the tar­mac. When the queen was whisked away, the March­ing Band and Ed­win Pouchet's Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra con­tin­ued play­ing. School chil­dren from near­by Arou­ca and St He­le­na Schools waved T&T and British flags. Since 1976, she was no longer recog­nised as Head of State of T&T af­ter it be­came a re­pub­lic. She is still recog­nised as Queen of 16 sov­er­eign states, in­clud­ing Caribbean coun­tries like Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.