It was en­cour­ag­ing to see key po­lit­i­cal lead­ers in To­ba­go and Trinidad com­ing to­geth­er on Mon­day to take the first step in re­viv­ing the San­dals project, rather than com­pet­ing for po­lit­i­cal ad­van­tage.

Clear­ly, the es­tab­lish­ment of a San­dals re­sort in To­ba­go could sig­nif­i­cant­ly al­ter the is­land’s eco­nom­ic land­scape.

From the very be­gin­ning, it was es­sen­tial for Gov­ern­ment to ap­proach this mat­ter cor­rect­ly by re­flect­ing on the er­rors made six years ago that led to the project’s stag­na­tion, pri­mar­i­ly due to a lack of pub­lic trans­paren­cy.

The choice to work ex­clu­sive­ly with the San­dals de­vel­op­ers rais­es ques­tions about best prac­tices in pro­cure­ment, such as the sale or lease of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

This has brought to light the crit­i­cal is­sue of whether tax­pay­er funds or as­sets, such as the land at Buc­coo Bay, are to be al­lo­cat­ed to this new pro­posed ven­ture.

Fol­low­ing a meet­ing with San­dals of­fi­cials, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young told the me­dia that it was too soon to an­swer some press­ing ques­tions, as they are ap­proach­ing the sit­u­a­tion with a clean slate. Pre­vi­ous­ly, the project was em­broiled in con­tro­ver­sy, when it was re­vealed that Gov­ern­ment planned to use the Hy­att Re­gency mod­el by con­struct­ing the re­sort be­fore trans­fer­ring it to San­dals for brand­ing, mar­ket­ing, and man­age­ment.

At that time, there was no clear an­swer re­gard­ing the ex­tent of Gov­ern­ment’s stake in the re­sort and the di­rect fi­nan­cial ben­e­fits for T&T from San­dals’ prof­its.

Sig­nif­i­cant im­por­tance must al­so be placed on en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cerns, which must be ad­dressed from the start.

The pre­vi­ous site se­lect­ed by San­dals in Buc­coo was in an en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive area and the de­vel­op­ment threat­ened the la­goon’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty. In the ne­go­ti­a­tions re­gard­ing San­dals’ po­ten­tial re­turn to To­ba­go, one an­tic­i­pat­ed that a suit­able site for de­vel­op­ment would have been iden­ti­fied be­fore­hand.

Be that as it may, it is cru­cial that if San­dals comes for­ward with a pro­pos­al, Gov­ern­ment en­sures com­plete trans­paren­cy, with en­vi­ron­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tions be­ing a key fac­tor in the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process re­gard­ing the site’s ap­proval or re­jec­tion.

Re­solv­ing these is­sues ear­ly on will al­low To­ba­go to cap­i­talise on a vi­tal im­prove­ment in its tourism in­dus­try.

To­ba­go has been un­able to com­pete with oth­er Caribbean is­lands in terms of tourist ar­rivals, pri­mar­i­ly due to the qual­i­ty of its ac­com­mo­da­tions and lim­i­ta­tions of the air­port in Crown Point in ser­vic­ing large air­lines.

As the new ANR Robin­son Air­port pre­pares to open, the next pri­or­i­ty is en­hanc­ing the is­land’s high-qual­i­ty room stock.

San­dals is well-re­gard­ed as a high-end re­sort, and the mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives aimed at in­creas­ing tourist ar­rivals will open up sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties for jobs, busi­ness growth, and for­eign ex­change in­flow.

A re­sort of this qual­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to at­tract a new group of tourists and im­prove the is­land’s mar­ket­ing and brand­ing ef­forts, which have not been par­tic­u­lar­ly strong in the past.

Da­ta from oth­er ar­eas have shown that lux­u­ry re­sorts can help po­si­tion an is­land as a year-round des­ti­na­tion by of­fer­ing spe­cial pack­ages and ex­pe­ri­ences de­signed for off-peak times. They can al­so en­hance lo­cal cul­ture and her­itage by in­cor­po­rat­ing unique as­pects of the coun­try in­to their ser­vices, such as cui­sine, art, and tra­di­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ences.

To­ba­go is in ur­gent need of this tourism boost and the uni­fied ap­proach from our lead­ers is a pos­i­tive sign for the is­land’s fu­ture.

We are hope­ful, there­fore, that the project’s man­age­ment will ad­dress cit­i­zens’ con­cerns ef­fec­tive­ly and en­sure its suc­cess, as fail­ure would ben­e­fit no one.