Shas­tri Boodan

The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) yes­ter­day wel­comed the re­newed dis­cus­sions on the San­dals To­ba­go pro­jec.t

CCIC head Bal­dath Ma­haraj said, the po­ten­tial of wel­com­ing a glob­al hos­pi­tal­i­ty brand like San­dals back to the ta­ble rep­re­sents a ma­jor step for­ward—not just for To­ba­go, but for T&T as a whole.

He said “Wher­ev­er the San­dals brand es­tab­lish­es a pres­ence in the Caribbean, there is a sig­nif­i­cant and sus­tained in­crease in in­ter­na­tion­al tourist ar­rivals. The brand brings with it a proven mod­el of ex­cel­lence in ser­vice, strate­gic glob­al mar­ket­ing, and in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment. Just as im­por­tant­ly, San­dals has demon­strat­ed a strong com­mit­ment to lo­cal em­ploy­ment, sup­pli­er de­vel­op­ment, and train­ing—key el­e­ments that could bring last­ing ben­e­fit to the peo­ple of To­ba­go," Ma­haraj said.

Ma­haraj was re­spond­ing to the vis­it to To­ba­go yes­ter­day by the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al, Adam Stew­art, who met with Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and sev­er­al To­bag­on­ian stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing chief sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, Far­ley Au­gus­tine.

Ma­haraj said the for­eign ex­change gen­er­at­ed by in­creased vis­i­tor ar­rivals through part­ner­ships with glob­al re­sort chains is bad­ly need­ed.

“This po­ten­tial in­jec­tion of forex would be a wel­come re­lief for our na­tion­al re­serves and could pos­i­tive­ly im­pact both the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and cit­i­zens alike, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing this pe­ri­od of eco­nom­ic strain,” said Ma­haraj.

Ma­haraj said the cham­ber is pleased that dis­cus­sions are be­ing held with the full in­tent of trans­paren­cy, le­gal due process, and open con­sul­ta­tion, which must in­clude the voic­es of en­vi­ron­men­tal ex­perts and NGOs.

He said “The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber stands ready to sup­port this ini­tia­tive and calls on all stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the na­tion­al busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, to em­brace the po­ten­tial of what could be a trans­for­ma­tion­al de­vel­op­ment for To­ba­go and the wider na­tion.”