T&T’s ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor will get an ad­di­tion­al boost with two ho­tels car­ry­ing the Hilton brand due to join Trinidad’s ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor in the next two years.

Steel is al­ready in the ground mark­ing the com­mence­ment for the con­struc­tion of the Hilton Hamp­ton Inn in Pi­ar­co, while the Hilton Gar­den Inn, to be lo­cat­ed at South Park in San Fer­nan­do is ex­pect­ed to be­gin con­struc­tion in the first half of 2025.

The de­vel­op­er for Hilton Hamp­ton Inn in Pi­ar­co is Kall Ho­tels, while Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels is the de­vel­op­er for Hilton Gar­den Inn in South Park. Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels is the com­pa­ny be­hind the Au­tho­graph by Brix and the Rox­ky Point De­vel­op­ment in To­ba­go

The con­struc­tion of the new ho­tels not on­ly adds to T&T’s ex­ist­ing room stock but will fos­ter job cre­ation and have a pos­i­tive domi­no ef­fect for the econ­o­my, Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell told the Busi­ness Guardian in an in­ter­view as he gave an up­date on the sec­tor.

More­so, this ties in with the coun­try’s con­tin­ued im­pe­tus to earn much need­ed forex.

“The strate­gic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of cor­po­ra­tions and con­sor­tiums in­to the tourism sec­tor, in par­tic­u­lar the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor (Had­co, John Aboud, Kalloo/Kall­co) as a way to earn not just prof­its, but al­so for­eign ex­change to sup­port their oth­er busi­ness­es,” Mitchell said.

He em­pha­sised that as T&T con­tin­ues to chart its eco­nom­ic fu­ture, ac­com­mo­da­tion re­mains a vi­tal force in dri­ving both growth and sta­bil­i­ty, stat­ing that to main­tain the coun­try’s com­pet­i­tive edge, boost­ing the stock of avail­able ho­tel rooms is es­sen­tial.

The min­is­ter not­ed that in fis­cal 2024, through the ho­tel room tax charged at 10 per cent on rooms, ho­tels con­tributed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $55 mil­lion to the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund in Trinidad and $8 mil­lion in To­ba­go.

Fur­ther, Mitchell said ini­tia­tives such as the Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Up­grade Pro­gramme (TAUP) have been piv­otal in en­cour­ag­ing both new de­vel­op­ments and the re­fur­bish­ment of ex­ist­ing prop­er­ties, not­ing that TAUP of­fers re­im­bursable grants of up to 50 per cent for cap­i­tal im­prove­ments.

This fa­cil­i­tates the en­hance­ment of room stock and en­sures the ac­com­mo­da­tion in­dus­try meets grow­ing de­mand.

In the 2024 fis­cal year, Mitchell said no­table up­grades were ap­proved for Xquis­ite Vil­la, Court­yard by Mar­riott, Tradewinds Ho­tel, and Air­port Suites.

“These up­grades are part of a broad­er strat­e­gy aimed at im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty of ac­com­mo­da­tions, cater­ing to a di­verse range of trav­ellers, and en­sur­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­main as a top tourist des­ti­na­tion,” he ex­plained, adding that mov­ing for­ward, ten ad­di­tion­al TAUP projects are planned for fis­cal 2025, with a fo­cus on small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) to en­hance the over­all tourism prod­uct.

In ad­di­tion to the TAUP pro­gramme, sev­er­al high-pro­file ho­tel projects un­der the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Act (TDA) are set to ex­pand the na­tion’s ac­com­mo­da­tion ca­pac­i­ty.

Key projects un­der the TDA in­clude the fol­low­ing de­vel­op­ments:

1. Mt Plaisir Es­tate Ho­tel—Grande Riv­iere

In Jan­u­ary 2024, HAD­CO Ex­pe­ri­ences com­plet­ed a $20 mil­lion ren­o­va­tion of this eco-tourism hotspot, di­rect­ly cre­at­ing 23 jobs while sup­port­ing many more in the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty. This project en­hances T&T’s eco-tourism of­fer­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly for leatherback tur­tle watch­ing;

2. Mara­cas Bay Ho­tel

Con­struc­tion is un­der­way on the full re­de­vel­op­ment of the $50 mil­lion Mara­cas Bay Beach Ho­tel. The project is ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate ap­prox­i­mate­ly 120 jobs dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase and 48 per­ma­nent jobs once op­er­a­tional. The ho­tel is sched­uled for com­ple­tion in the first quar­ter of 2026;

3. Hilton Hamp­ton Inn—Pi­ar­co

Con­struc­tion has com­menced on a 103-room Hilton Hamp­ton Inn Ho­tel near Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. The $160 mil­lion project is ex­pect­ed to cre­ate 100 to 150 jobs dur­ing its con­struc­tion phase and will em­ploy 65 staff once op­er­a­tional. The ho­tel is slat­ed for com­ple­tion in Jan­u­ary 2026;

4. Hilton Gar­den Inn, South Park—San Fer­nan­do

Plans are cur­rent­ly be­ing de­vel­oped for the Hilton Gar­den Inn, a 125-room ho­tel and con­fer­ence fa­cil­i­ty at South Park, San Fer­nan­do. Con­struc­tion is ex­pect­ed to be­gin in the first half of 2025, adding a key hos­pi­tal­i­ty op­tion in the vicin­i­ty of San Fer­nan­do. The project is ex­pect­ed to cost $210 mil­lion;

5. Mar­riott Ho­tel—To­ba­go

The $500 mil­lion Mar­riott Ho­tel at Rocky Point is cur­rent­ly await­ing its Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) and fi­nal ap­provals be­fore con­struc­tion can be­gin;

6. Trinidad Hilton

The Trinidad Hilton is un­der­go­ing a $400 mil­lion prop­er­ty im­prove­ment plan aimed at en­hanc­ing the ho­tel’s ap­peal and im­prov­ing its room stock. The ex­ten­sive up­grades are ex­pect­ed to in­crease the ho­tel’s at­trac­tive­ness and fur­ther po­si­tion it as a key des­ti­na­tion for trav­ellers; and

7. NA­PA Ho­tel

In fis­cal year 2024, a pub­lic re­quest for pro­pos­als was is­sued to se­cure an op­er­a­tor for the 52-room NA­PA Ho­tel. Fol­low­ing the eval­u­a­tion of sub­mis­sions, ne­go­ti­a­tions are now in progress with the top-ranked pro­po­nent. This ho­tel’s op­er­a­tions is set to boost the ho­tel room ca­pac­i­ty in Cap­i­tal City of Port-of-Spain.

Mean­while, lo­cal ho­tel The Brix by Mar­riott was re­cent­ly award­ed top Au­to­graph Col­lec­tion Ho­tel for the year 2023 for the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca Re­gion.

Em­pha­sis­ing that the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor’s con­tin­ued ex­pan­sion, fu­elled by ris­ing trav­el de­mand and strate­gic in­vest­ment in ho­tel in­fra­struc­ture, sig­nals a promis­ing fu­ture for T&T’s tourism in­dus­try, Mitchell said these de­vel­op­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly those sup­port­ed by TAUP and new de­vel­op­ments, un­der­score the sec­tor’s crit­i­cal role in the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

“By en­hanc­ing the coun­try’s tourism in­fra­struc­ture, the ac­com­mo­da­tion in­dus­try is paving the way for a more pros­per­ous, re­silient, and di­ver­si­fied fu­ture,” he added.

In 2023, the non-en­er­gy sec­tor saw a 2.5 per cent rise, dri­ven pri­mar­i­ly by the ro­bust per­for­mances of ac­com­mo­da­tion and food ser­vices, trade and re­pairs and trans­port and stor­age.

To­geth­er, these in­dus­tries ac­count­ed for over 28 per cent of the na­tion’s GDP, un­der­lin­ing the in­creas­ing sig­nif­i­cance of the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor as an en­gine of growth.

As glob­al trav­el de­mand and ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy rates surge year af­ter year, the sec­tor is be­com­ing a key dri­ver of the na­tion­al econ­o­my, of­fer­ing more than just places to stay but shap­ing the en­tire trav­el ex­pe­ri­ence.

Mitchell re­in­forced that qual­i­ty lodg­ing is cen­tral to how tourists per­ceive a des­ti­na­tion, in­flu­enc­ing their like­li­hood to re­turn or rec­om­mend it to oth­ers, adding that T&T’s di­verse range of ac­com­mo­da­tions, from lux­u­ry ho­tels to bud­get-friend­ly stays, en­sures the na­tion can cater to a wide ar­ray of trav­ellers, en­hanc­ing its in­ter­na­tion­al ap­peal.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor is a ma­jor source of em­ploy­ment, gen­er­at­ing di­rect jobs in ho­tels and guest­hous­es and in­di­rect jobs in var­i­ous in­dus­tries, not­ing that this helps sus­tain em­ploy­ment across var­i­ous sec­tors, mak­ing it a key con­trib­u­tor to over­all job growth.

“At­tract­ing in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors in­jects for­eign cur­ren­cy in­to the econ­o­my. The steady in­flow of for­eign ex­change strength­ens T&T’s fi­nan­cial po­si­tion, fu­elling wider eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and im­prov­ing its glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness,” Mitchell said.

He added that the ac­com­mo­da­tion in­dus­try is play­ing an in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant role in T&T’s ef­forts to di­ver­si­fy its econ­o­my be­yond the en­er­gy sec­tor, main­tain­ing that tourism has be­come a crit­i­cal rev­enue gen­er­a­tor, with the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor con­tribut­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly through ho­tel tax­es and Val­ue Added Tax (VAT).

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the tourism min­is­ter said vis­i­tor spend­ing pos­i­tive­ly im­pacts a broad spec­trum of lo­cal busi­ness­es, from farm­ers sup­ply­ing ho­tels to taxi op­er­a­tors and re­tail­ers, bol­ster­ing lo­cal en­ter­pris­es and gen­er­at­ing fur­ther VAT rev­enue, stat­ing that these funds are rein­vest­ed in pub­lic ser­vices, in­fra­struc­ture, and tourism de­vel­op­ment.

Mov­ing for­ward, Mitchell said his min­istry con­tin­ues to in­cen­tivise and work to at­tract in­vest­ment in­to the tourism sec­tor to grow the econ­o­my and in­crease val­ue, while di­ver­si­fy­ing rev­enues away from oil and gas.