An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Ltd has part­nered with Tourism Trinidad to fos­ter greater en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and preser­va­tion as the in­ter­na­tion­al tourism com­mu­ni­ty marked World Tourism Day yes­ter­day un­der the theme, “Tourism and Green In­vest­ment.”

In not­ing the oc­ca­sion, An­gos­tu­ra do­nat­ed some of its icon­ic rum bar­rels to two tourism stake­hold­ers; Mar­cia Guer­rero, pres­i­dent of the Lopinot Coun­trystyle Com­mu­ni­ty Tourism and Sher­wyn Ro­main, own­er of Tri­ni Tours and Trans­port Com­pa­ny based in Paramin.

The bar­rels will be re­pur­posed for var­i­ous us­es. The event took place at the of­fice of Tourism Trinidad at the Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Port-of-Spain.

Car­la Cu­pid, CEO of Tourism Trinidad said this has sig­nalled the build­ing of a foun­da­tion for a bet­ter tourism in­dus­try in T&T.

“We will build on and de­vel­op so that oth­er ini­tia­tives can come forth. We want to en­sure our stake­hold­ers re­main com­pet­i­tive and be­ing part of a glob­al move­ment to­wards more green ini­tia­tives, a move­ment to­wards en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly ini­tia­tives and a move­ment to­wards im­mer­sive ex­pe­ri­ences,” Cu­pid added.

Re­in­forc­ing the val­ue of part­ner­ship to raise this coun­try’s tourism prod­uct, Cu­pid said: “What we do bears no fruit if you all don’t con­tribute and come to­geth­er to fa­cil­i­tate ini­tia­tives like these.”

Al­so speak­ing was man­ag­er of mar­ket­ing at An­gos­tu­ra, So­phie Charles-Bar­ber, who al­so echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, not­ing that the col­lab­o­ra­tion will pro­mote eco­tourism and en­vi­ron­men­tal con­scious­ness in the most in­no­v­a­tive way.

“An­gos­tu­ra recog­nis­es the piv­otal role that tourism plays in our na­tion’s growth and our shared vi­sion ... in­stead of re­tir­ing our bar­rels they will find new life as planters with­in the eco­tourism sphere,” Charles-Bar­ber added.

Guer­rero said the bar­rels will be used for veg­eta­bles such as cher­ry toma­toes, pump­kin and mi­cro­greens not on­ly to pro­mote healthy eat­ing, but the avail­abil­i­ty of more lo­cal pro­duce.

Ro­main al­so not­ed that the theme of go­ing green blends per­fect­ly with Paramin as it is com­mon­ly re­ferred as the “sea­son­ing cap­i­tal” of T&T and the com­mu­ni­ty is al­so known for its lush land­scape.