Tour boat op­er­a­tors in To­ba­go are ex­pect­ing a good sea­son for the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion.

Michael Frank, the own­er/op­er­a­tor of Frankie Tours, said while not many tourists are ex­pect­ed from North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope, the is­land has seen an up­swing in vis­i­tors from the Caribbean re­gion and more do­mes­tic tourists from Trinidad.

“From Jan­u­ary to now we had a con­sis­tent pe­ri­od of high tourism and it con­tin­ues in­to the pe­ri­od of the school va­ca­tion,” said Frank dur­ing an in­ter­view on Store Bay, To­ba­go, last Thurs­day.

Frank was the last pres­i­dent of the Reef Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion be­fore the or­gan­i­sa­tion dis­solved fol­low­ing the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter, tour boat op­er­a­tors com­plained about the im­pact the lock­downs had been hav­ing on their liveli­hoods.

Some were al­so im­pact­ed by the slow­ing down of the tourism sec­tor in To­ba­go post-pan­dem­ic as hote­liers strug­gled to fill rooms.

There has since been a re­ver­sal of for­tune.

Ac­cord­ing to Frank, tour op­er­a­tors are now go­ing the ex­tra mile to en­sure tourists to To­ba­go have a mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence.

He said they are now giv­ing vis­i­tors more than just the beau­ty of the Buc­coo Reef. He said peo­ple can now get a tour around the is­land and even vis­it se­clud­ed beach­es that are on­ly ac­ces­si­ble by boat such as Cot­ton Bay, Ad­mi­ral Bay, La­va Bay and Rock­stone Bay.

Vis­i­tors, who frol­icked in the sun and sand at Store Bay, said they were hap­py to be on va­ca­tion on such a pic­turesque and re­lax­ing beach.

Elisa Fol­gero, from Nor­way, said it was the first time she and her friends came to the Caribbean.

Celia Valen­tine, al­so from Nor­way, said she planned to stay three weeks on the is­land. Josi­ah Lai Fook, from Boston in the Unit­ed States, said he and rel­a­tives have planned a tour of the is­land and had been look­ing for­ward to the ex­cite­ment.

Kam­la Ram­sawak, who turned 60 last Thurs­day, said he was ex­cit­ed to be­come a pen­sion­er while hol­i­day­ing in To­ba­go.

“I came as a ju­nior and I am go­ing back as a se­nior. I will pay less to trav­el on the boat,” said Ram­sawak.

“Store Bay was not as crowd­ed as it was in its hey­days when there were long lines to go on reef tours. I pre­fer it so.”