Richard Lord

For­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment coun­cil­lor Denise Ale­ong-Thomas has been ap­point­ed a mem­ber of the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed Com­mit­tee for the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment of Tourism in Trinidad. Ale­ong-Thomas did not con­test Mon­day's lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion but served as a coun­cil­lor at the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion for 18 years. She was ap­point­ed in her ca­pac­i­ty as pres­i­dent of the Small Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Own­ers of T&T.

Chair­man of the com­mit­tee, Tourism Min­is­ter Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith, said his Gov­ern­ment and the com­mit­tee would work hand-in-hand with cit­i­zens of T&T to de­vel­op the tourism sec­tor to en­sure its con­tri­bu­tion to GDP (Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct) in­creased from 17 per cent to "as high a lev­el as pos­si­ble." Grif­fith said so dur­ing an in­ter­view at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day fol­low­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of the let­ters of ap­point­ment to com­mit­tee mem­bers. He said the Tourism Min­istry would em­bark on an ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme to make na­tion­als more aware of the need to as­sist in de­vel­op­ing the sec­tor.

He said tourism was "one of the key planks" in the Gov­ern­ment's dri­ve to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my from oil and gas. Grif­fith said the pro­mo­tion of "lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty projects" was to be used to boost the tourism in­dus­try. He said dis­cus­sions were on go­ing with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties to "de­vel­op tourism prod­ucts." Grif­fith said he al­ready had met with res­i­dents in sev­er­al dis­tricts in East Trinidad to dis­cuss pos­si­ble projects. He said a new board would be ap­point­ed to the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny in about one month's time. A ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket­ing ex­er­cise al­so is to be ini­ti­at­ed short­ly to at­tract more tourists to T&T.

Oth­er mem­bers of the com­mit­tee are:

�2 Del­mon Bak­er – Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Tourism;

�2 Ernest Lit­tles – pres­i­dent, Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny;

�2 Mel­ba Dedi­er – Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, Min­istry of Tourism;

�2 Pa­tri­cia Butch­er – ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, T&T Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute;

�2 Tracey Savary – di­vi­sion­al man­ag­er, Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny;

�2 Michelle Palmer-Keiz­er – pres­i­dent, Trinidad Ho­tels, Restau­rants and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion;

�2 Wen­dell Grif­fith – pres­i­dent, T&T Tour Guides As­so­ci­a­tion;

�2 Lor­raine Pouchet – pres­i­dent, T&T In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion;

�2 Syd­ney Valere – pres­i­dent, T&T Tourism Trans­port Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion;

�2 Christo­pher James – T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce;

�2 Al­lan Butch­er – Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor, Tur­tle Vil­lage Trust;

�2 Suzan Lakhan-Bap­tiste – chair­per­son, Na­ture Seek­ers;

�2 William Agui­ton – chair­man, Board of Gov­er­nors T&T Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute;

�2 Ethel Hec­tor-Berkley – ad­min­is­tra­tor, Tourism and Trans­porta­tion Di­vi­sion, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

about the com­mit­tee

Apart from as­sist­ing in the de­vel­op­ment of the tourism sec­tor in Trinidad, the com­mit­tee is ex­pect­ed to sup­port the ex­e­cu­tion of poli­cies and plans of the Tourism Min­istry and the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC). Its first pri­or­i­ty is to es­tab­lish three sub-com­mit­tees to ad­dress ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness, niche de­vel­op­ment and com­pet­i­tive­ness.