Stakeholders in the Tobago tourism sector have to get out of the idea of receiving ‘free money’ from the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) and while the THA will support them there must also be accountability for the use of public funds.
That is the view of the newly appointed Secretary of Tourism and Transportation Tashia Grace Burris who in an interview with the Business Guardian (BG) made it clear that a new day has dawned that would see greater accountability at her Division.
She said, “Well I don’t know if you remember that the government’s would have released 50 million dollars about a week before the election to assist operators to do some work on their plants, however, the challenge that they are experiencing at this time is some of the operators are not in a position to qualify for these grants for one reason or another. So they are kind of working assiduously to bring persons up to the level where they would be able to qualify because certainly we have to get out of this idea of the government giving free money.”
Burris added, “For me it’s not something that I would really like to encourage. I know that we have to provide the support to the sector at this time and that is of paramount importance. But we have to get to the place where persons are willing to operate according to the standards that we have set and those standards include being able to provide accounts and being able to fall in line with inland revenue requirements and things like that. Which is to be expected if anybody wants to operate in a business environment.”
Burris said there is support in terms of the stakeholders having access to the funds that have been made available, but it’s just for them to be able to bring themselves up to the level where they are able to qualify.
“And things have been put in place in terms of monitoring and evaluation on our end to ensure that the money is spent in the place where it’s supposed to be spent.” the Tourism Secretary emphasised.
During the recent election campaign in which the PNM was decimated by the PDP the operations of the Division of Tourism and in particular the former Secretary Tracy Davidson Celestine was a major focus, including issues surrounding the failed zipline project that happened under her watch. Most observers say this and the lack of trust for Davidson Celestine played a major role in the hammering the PNM got at the polls.
Burris said the new administration has to change any view that tourism is not a viable option for the people of Tobago and that there should be heavy reliance on the Assembly alone for jobs.
“I think people voted for change and change is not just political in nature. From what I have been hearing on the ground and even in my interactions on the street, persons in the Division, we have to change that culture. This party campaigned on the notion of fixing things and fixing things is not just physical, it is mindset as well. The idea is that we really want to transition people off of depending on the THA, and the two most viable sectors that present an immediate opportunity. Those are the tourism sector and the agricultural sector. The emphasis will be placed on building out these sectors in the short to medium term so we can now provide options for employment that didn’t necessarily exist before,” Burris told the BG.
But how is this tourism product to be developed? The new Secretary admitted that there are many people with different ideas including one that said Tobago could be many things. It could be a destination for weddings, for health and wellness tourism, for high end and community tourism and of course eco tourism. But Burris said that will have to be a collective decision on what Tobago’s tourism should look like.
What she is sure about though is the need to fix several things including the quality of service offered on the island to guests and the perennial problem of airlift.
“With respect to airlift, he (the CEO of the Tobago Tourism Agency Limited) has given me some background as the current situation with that. That would require some negotiation of current contracts that they may have with BA and Virgin Atlantic because these are the airlines traditionally the have provided airlift into Tobago. So once the decision is taken for us to open our international borders, those negotiations have to be concluded,” Burris revealed.
The Tourism Secretary said during the first two days of taking up the position she has held some relatively brief meetings with the CEO of TTAL and members of her own staff to alert them to the need to focus on reopening Tobago for business.
Accepting that like the rest of the world the island was facing a health crisis brought about by the Covid19 pandemic, she said there needed to be a timeframe in which Tobago can reopen for visitors.
“What this is basically, is the idea that we need to start to position Tobago to reopen for business. And we need to put a definite time frame as to when that should happen. Currently there is a Tobago normal committee that was functioning, well let’s just say the Board is there so I have to review the documentation that they have developed in terms of plans and projections and that kind of thing to see where they were at, in terms of that. But certainly the Chief has already indicated that opening back Tobago is a priority. So basically, we have these three companies which will be responsible for marketing of the destination, the festival as well as the cultural aspects of our heritage.
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I see the three of them working in synergy to get us back to a place where we are certain of what we are selling. We are at a place where we could now manage our product and we are able to want to open our borders because we are still technically closed on this side. So that we could invite the airlift back, we can increase the domestic tourism and therefore you know, get us back to a place of normalcy.” Burris explained.
She said tourism is reeling on the island from the deleterious effects of the COVID 19 pandemic and because tourism traditionally has been positioned as a pillar of the island’s economic development the sooner Tobago is back up and running the better.
Burris said she was called by Tourism Minister Randall Mitchell who congratulated her on her appointment and expressed an interest in working with her and the Assembly to ensure that the island’s tourism product performs.
She said in that context as Secretary she will early next year pay a courtesy call on the Tourism Minister to have further discussions.
In respect of Cruise Ship tourism Burris said a similar situation exists to the issue of proximity to source destinations as Tobago lies to the end of the island chain.
She asserted this was not necessarily a weakness, “We are uniquely positioned in the Caribbean in terms of our proximity to South America and these kinds of things. So that for us the conversations with cruiselines, because they themselves have had to change the way that they have done business in light of what is taking place with COVID, and they would want to go to destinations where they can get return on investment. So that will require some conversations with the cruise ship operators. I do have a meeting to set up with respect to that to look at what the possibilities are there.”
Burris said some infrastructure work at the Port of Scarborough also had to addressed if there was to be a burgeoning cruise industry in Tobago.