An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Long-serv­ing cruise agent Charles Car­val­ho is re­ject­ing sug­ges­tions that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cruise sea­son is fac­ing any wide­spread col­lapse in book­ings, warn­ing that ex­ag­ger­at­ed com­men­tary risks dam­ag­ing the coun­try’s rep­u­ta­tion in a sec­tor that de­pends heav­i­ly on con­fi­dence and glob­al per­cep­tion.

Car­val­ho was re­spond­ing to T&T In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (TTI­TOA) pres­i­dent, Lor­raine Pouchet, and in­ter­im chair of the T&T Coali­tion of Tourism As­so­ci­a­tions (TTC­TA), who said ear­li­er this week that cruise ship op­er­a­tors had re­port­ed a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in pre-booked tours, in­clud­ing one ves­sel can­celling its To­ba­go call for this Fri­day, amid geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions.

On the over­all busi­ness cli­mate and book­ing trends, how­ev­er, Pouchet said that at this time, no ma­jor can­cel­la­tions were record­ed across the sec­tor for the 2025 win­ter sea­son or Car­ni­val pe­ri­od.

In a state­ment sent to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Car­val­ho’s Agen­cies Ltd and T&T Sight­see­ing Tours said re­cent pub­lic claims of steep de­clines in pre-booked tours for the 2025 sea­son do not match the da­ta they are see­ing from cruise lines al­ready com­mit­ted to Trinidad, To­ba­go and Char­lot­teville. Car­val­ho, whose com­pa­ny has been in the in­dus­try for more than four decades, said the nar­ra­tive of mass can­cel­la­tions or shrink­ing de­mand is both in­ac­cu­rate and po­ten­tial­ly harm­ful.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, book­ings for up­com­ing calls re­main sta­ble, and cruise lines have been seek­ing ad­di­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty and new itin­er­ary op­tions for the is­lands. The on­ly sched­ule change record­ed so far, the com­pa­ny said, in­volved a sin­gle ves­sel cor­rect­ing a tech­ni­cal is­sue, an event it stressed is rou­tine across the re­gion and not in­dica­tive of any shift in sen­ti­ment. Ships con­tin­ue to ar­rive as planned, vis­i­tor sat­is­fac­tion scores re­main high, and, cru­cial­ly, no cruise line has is­sued any ad­vi­so­ry against this coun­try.

Car­val­ho stressed that the coun­try re­mains a high-val­ue des­ti­na­tion, adding that cruise ex­ec­u­tives con­sis­tent­ly rate T&T’s cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty, food, fes­ti­vals and bio­di­ver­si­ty as ma­jor draws for their pas­sen­gers.

He ar­gued that claims of wide­spread can­cel­la­tions ig­nore the broad­er re­al­i­ty that cruise lines use uni­form glob­al risk as­sess­ments and Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to meet re­gion­al stan­dards for op­er­a­tions, safe­ty and cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence.

The com­pa­ny took is­sue with what it called mis­char­ac­ter­i­sa­tions of the mar­ket, say­ing ir­re­spon­si­ble or spec­u­la­tive com­ments can di­rect­ly in­flu­ence in­ter­na­tion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing. Car­val­ho is­sued a sharp re­minder that neg­a­tive head­lines, even when not sup­port­ed by sec­tor-wide da­ta, can un­der­mine years of work to build re­la­tion­ships with the cruise lines that ul­ti­mate­ly de­ter­mine where ships go.

He urged tourism stake­hold­ers to be more care­ful and col­lab­o­ra­tive in their pub­lic state­ments, ar­gu­ing that the coun­try can­not af­ford mixed sig­nals in an in­dus­try where per­cep­tion of­ten dri­ves book­ings.

De­spite the con­cerns raised in the pub­lic do­main, Car­val­ho said its day-to-day dis­cus­sions with cruise ex­ec­u­tives point to con­fi­dence rather than re­treat. Based on con­firmed book­ings and on­go­ing plan­ning, the agency ex­pects growth in itin­er­aries be­tween 2025 and 2030, in­clud­ing ris­ing in­ter­est in eco-tourism, cul­tur­al ex­cur­sions, culi­nary ex­pe­ri­ences and oth­er niche prod­ucts that spread tourism earn­ings deep­er in­to com­mu­ni­ties. He said there is no ev­i­dence of any sys­temic drop in de­mand.

Mean­while, Tourism In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TIATT) co-founder Lisa Shandilya echoed the call for clear­er in­dus­try mes­sag­ing, stress­ing that stake­hold­ers must bal­ance con­cerns with con­text.

She said TIATT mem­bers re­main fo­cussed on plan­ning, fore­cast­ing and keep­ing busi­ness sta­ble even in a volatile glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.  

Dur­ing Tues­day’s cruise call of the Coral Princess, Shandilya ob­served a wide mix of pas­sen­gers, in­clud­ing an old­er de­mo­graph­ic tak­ing struc­tured tours and younger vis­i­tors ex­plor­ing Port-of-Spain on foot.

She said each call brings re­al so­cio-eco­nom­ic val­ue, in­clud­ing for­eign ex­change earn­ings that con­tribute to GDP. Shandilya said the in­dus­try can­not af­ford to be­come dis­tract­ed by noise at a time when the coun­try is see­ing im­prove­ments in crime de­tec­tion, greater ca­pac­i­ty with­in the armed forces and a more in­te­grat­ed ap­proach to trade, in­vest­ment and tourism. While ac­knowl­edg­ing the Caribbean’s ten­den­cy to grav­i­tate to­ward spec­u­la­tion “bac­cha­nal, yes, but not war,” she ar­gued that the re­al op­por­tu­ni­ty lies in sharp­en­ing long-term strat­e­gy.

For her, this means at­tract­ing new in­vestors, im­prov­ing lo­cal brands and in­fra­struc­ture, build­ing small lux­u­ry bou­tique ho­tels across both is­lands, ex­pand­ing air­lift and fix­ing in­ter-is­land trav­el. She said the tourism prod­uct must evolve be­yond ap­peal­ing main­ly to busi­ness trav­ellers or US loy­al­ty cus­tomers and shift to­ward a broad­er glob­al mar­ket seek­ing leisure and lux­u­ry.

Shandilya added that is how T&T will broad­en its ap­peal, un­lock new rev­enue streams and fi­nal­ly be­gin to com­pete on the scale its nat­ur­al as­sets jus­ti­fy.