Tourists are trickling into Tobago due to the limited number of flights.
Last week, Tourism Trinidad shared the Tourism Stakeholders Information Monthly Bulletin, highlighting statistics on the number of visitors to Trinidad and Tobago for the up until the end of July.
In the document, the numbers seemed encouraging.
The entity announced, “The month of July registered an occupancy rate of 62 per cent. This was the highest occupancy recorded since February 2020, which was the last year Carnival was celebrated prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the period January-July, the occupancy rate averaged 50 per cent.”
The post continued, “In July 2023, Trinidad and Tobago welcomed 29,476 visitors, up 24 per cent from last month. The majority (28,352 or 96 per cent) of visitors landed in Trinidad with Tobago receiving just over 1,100 direct visitors. Total visitor arrivals for the first seven months of the year were 182,508.”
The post also confirmed that the North American market continued to be Trinidad and Tobago’s main source market, as it commandered 62 per cent of total arrivals over the period January to July 2023. The post pointed out, “other notable source markets were Caricom and Europe which averaged 15 per cent and 10 per cent respectively, over the review period.”
The numbers would suggest that there had been a significant turnaround in the local tourism industry, but a closer look at the figures revealed that Tobago, long heralded as the tourism hub of the country, did not enjoy the best share of visitors.
According to the data, in June 23,558 visitors came to Trinidad and Tobago with Trinidad welcoming 22,616 visitors, while only 942 visitors came directly to Tobago.
As noted above, July a period known for events such as the Tobago Heritage Festival, Island Crashers and Great Fete Weekend and other events, only saw 1,124 direct visitors. The monthly chart posted that for the first seven months, the average number of visitors stood at around 1,000, with only January and February posting better numbers than July.
In a recent interview with the Business Guardian, President of Tobago’s Hotel and Tourism Association Alpha Lorde said that without the bump provided by the recent Youth Commonwealth Games at the start of August, the island’s hoteliers would be looking at inferior numbers compared to 2022.
“July usually is a little slower and then we have the anomaly that is the Commonwealth Games, so a number of the hotels on the island would have benefitted from that and for those hotels that benefitted it still caused the other hotels to have an increase.
“We have a market that supported the island largely, but I think if you were to remove that, we might be just about or behind last year’s figures,” said Lorde.
The limited numbers being recorded in Tobago, he said, were due to the ongoing difficulties in terms of getting to the island. Lorde had been interviewed before the sickout of Caribbean Airlines pilots and the subsequent cancellation of several flights including several along the airbridge.
However, the issue had been highlighted as a major concern by several Tobago business operators for some time, with the Tobago Business Chamber even listing the need for increased flights to Tobago among its budget recommendations.
However, Lorde noted that more flights also needed to come from overseas to Tobago as well.
“The hotels are not in the greatest position in terms of the tourist arrivals. In terms of tourist arrivals whether it be from Trinidad or internationals arriving at the destination, coming out of the pandemic there is some ground to be made up.
“I think also if we were to be realistic the number of persons coming out of Trinidad has gone down. In part, that has to do with the fact that they are able to travel not only internationally but through the Caribbean a little more freely,” said Lorde.
“But there is also the consideration that it is still very challenging to get to and from Tobago on short notice. And short notice could be even three weeks out sometimes. “Three weeks you are trying to find a flight and you cannot find a flight. So, I think that has and continues to affect the Tobago hoteliers and the Tobago tourism product as a whole. The ability or inability I should say to get to and from the airline, even internationally because we have limited flights available to us coming in from international destinations. We have seen improvements, but we are way off the mark still. And it is not simply because the COVID recovery is slow. There are a lot of logistical issues that still continue to affect the island.”
Lorde said despite these issues the hoteliers were looking to the winter period with optimism as it had traditionally been a stronger season for the island. He hoped that by then there would be an improvement in the airlift availability for the island.
“I think most hoteliers have a very positive outlook. I think people are looking forward to the winter season when they expect the international arrivals to pick up. We are still very optimistic, we would like to see some changes take place for sure the improvement in the local airbridge, the improvement in the international flight situation. We are looking forward with optimism. We are partnering with all the authorities, in terms of the Tobago Tourism Agency Ltd and the Division of Tourism and we are hoping that our collective efforts that we really put into last year in terms of the international market will start paying some dividends going into the winter,” said Lorde.
But he also noted that the hoteliers faced other challenges including the rising costs of goods, as well as the limited availability of staff, as many professionals opted out of the hospitality industry after it was largely shut down during the pandemic.
Lorde stated that this has caused many hotels to operate on less-than-optimal staffing. Still, he said, most were not ready to give up on the industry just yet.
“The island would have had some staffing challenges. COVID-19 did not make it any easier. As a matter of fact, it exacerbated the issues tremendously. That is not a Tobago thing only. If you go throughout the Caribbean, you go internationally, airlines are facing crew-resourcing problems,” he said.
“I think people are taking blows. Sometimes you can take it and there are times when you can’t take it and there are times when you can’t take it or more likely the case is how long can you take it for. So I don’t think anybody is thinking this is not sustainable or anybody is thinking this is time to close up shop.”
Like Lorde, Tourism Trinidad had been looking forward to returns from upcoming events such as Trinidad’s hosting of matches in the Caribbean Premier League, while also looking towards the numbers from the recent celebrations surrounding the recently commemorated World Steelpan Day.
The Business Guardian reached out to Tourism Minister Randall Mitchell for a comment on the statistics reported by Tourism Trinidad but did not get a response up to the time of publication.