An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

As the count­down be­gins to 2024, some restau­rant own­ers say while 2023 was a bet­ter year than the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic years, there were still sev­er­al chal­lenges such as in­creased costs of raw ma­te­ri­als and the for­eign ex­change saga.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with two busi­ness­men to get their per­spec­tives on 2023 and 2024.

Derek Chin, Movi­eTowne and Dachin Group of Com­pa­nies ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, said this year was a bet­ter year for their hos­pi­tal­i­ty and en­ter­tain­ment busi­ness, which suf­fered great­ly from the woes of the pan­dem­ic.

He said while there has been sta­bil­i­sa­tion in the nightlife and eat­ing places, much dam­age had al­ready been done with many restau­rant ca­su­al­ties.

This, he in­di­cat­ed, was due to sup­ply short­ages, and in­creased costs of raw ma­te­ri­als, which some restau­rants could not sur­vive.

Chin not­ed that the bat­tle in the food busi­ness is still a re­al chal­lenge and con­cern, as the high cost of liv­ing, de­clin­ing dis­pos­able in­come, out-of-con­trol crime, and in­creas­ing fear of go­ing out at night are ma­jor is­sues, hin­der­ing the in­dus­try.

“I don’t be­lieve that things are get­ting bet­ter and we have to be very con­cerned as peo­ple get des­per­ate to make ends meet. You are see­ing it with the re­ports of poor Christ­mas sales and a def­i­nite drop off in Oc­to­ber, No­vem­ber, and De­cem­ber at our cin­e­mas and restau­rants. Peo­ple don’t have the dis­pos­able in­come as be­fore and on­ly buy the ne­ces­si­ties,” the busi­ness­man stressed.

Chin lament­ed that he would have liked to see the re­duc­tion of Val­ued Added Tax (VAT) to sev­en per cent and the in­tro­duc­tion of a cre­ative sales tax.

With the for­eign ex­change chal­lenge, which has ex­ist­ed for 15 years, the busi­ness own­er said many con­tin­ue to go on the black mar­ket to buy for­eign ex­change and pay vi­tal bills.

“We de­pend so much on the en­er­gy sec­tor to earn US dol­lar, so when that source is lim­it­ed and on a de­cline, we have very lim­it­ed US dol­lar to serve our needs. We have not re­duced our spend on for­eign goods and we still spend big on PriceS­mart and oth­er gro­ceries. This prob­lem has no short-term so­lu­tion un­less we find more en­er­gy re­serves or be se­ri­ous about di­ver­si­fy­ing our econ­o­my,” Chin de­tailed.

Paint­ing a sim­i­lar pic­ture, Pe­ter George, own­er of Trot­ters Group, said his wish for 2024 is that the restau­rant in­dus­try gets the recog­ni­tion it needs af­ter se­vere­ly be­ing af­fect­ed by the pan­dem­ic.

“We were harsh­ly and un­fair­ly sin­gled out dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and many of us man­aged to steer the course, as we are a vi­brant and cre­ative in­dus­try. My wish is al­so for a Na­tion­al Restau­rant As­so­ci­a­tion, for lob­by­ing pur­pos­es. The in­dus­try is be­ing bad­ly ham­pered by for­eign ex­change woes, and sup­ply chain is­sues and then ham­pered by ca­pac­i­ty from the lo­cal per­spec­tive. So it’s been a per­fect storm that in­ten­si­fied dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Plus, we now have to deal with the mas­sive broad­en­ing of street food ven­dors and in-house cater­ing,” George dis­closed.  

He said some peo­ple do not know this in­dus­try is a crit­i­cal com­po­nent with­in the coun­try’s econ­o­my.

“We are of­ten looked up­on as an in­for­mal group that is just sell­ing some food. Every­where in the world restau­rants play an in­te­gral part in the hu­man fab­ric, but in Trinidad, we are just viewed as a fly in the oint­ment,” he added.