To­ba­go’s “jaw-drop­ping nat­ur­al splen­dour” re­cent­ly earned the is­land a top spot by Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic mag­a­zine.

Hail­ing it as “qui­et and wel­com­ing,” the mag­a­zine high­light­ed the abun­dant at­trac­tions, in­clud­ing the bird-watch­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties To­ba­go is renowned for and de­scribed it as a bird­er’s par­adise with more than 260 species.

And un­der the sea, the ac­tion con­tin­ues.

The mag­a­zine al­so sin­gles out To­ba­go’s night-time bi­o­lu­mi­nes­cence tour which it said is a nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non any vis­i­tor will not soon for­get.

But what does this mean for the is­land’s tourism in­dus­try mov­ing for­ward?

Sean Mc Coon of En­vi­ron­ment To­ba­go ex­plained this rep­re­sents a shift from tra­di­tion­al tourism.

“Fur­ther to the is­land’s shift in fo­cus from the tra­di­tion­al sun, sand and sea type com­mer­cial ap­proach to tourism prod­ucts and out­put, the im­por­tance of the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment as part and par­cel of the To­ba­go prod­uct and its unique­ness is now high­light­ed in a mean­ing­ful man­ner,” he said.

En­vi­ron­ment To­ba­go pro­motes the con­ser­va­tion of To­ba­go’s nat­ur­al re­sources by ad­vanc­ing the knowl­edge and un­der­stand­ing of their es­sen­tial re­la­tion­ship to hu­man health and qual­i­ty of life, through ed­u­ca­tion, ad­vo­ca­cy, re­search and restora­tion.

Fur­ther, Mc Coon said that the award al­so jus­ti­fies To­ba­go as not on­ly a tourism des­ti­na­tion in the main­stream mar­ket­ing sense but al­so from a per­spec­tive of sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Added to the flo­ra, fau­na and bios­phere (rain­for­est at Main Ridge) there are sus­tain­able tourism out­put op­por­tu­ni­ties to be had through such an award be­ing giv­en to the is­land, Mc Coon not­ed.

“The recog­ni­tion now can act as a cat­a­lyst for oth­er eco-re­lat­ed at­ten­tion be­ing placed on To­ba­go. The Blue and Green econ­o­my (and or­ange/en­ter­tain­ment/cul­ture/arts) would al­so ben­e­fit as a re­sult of this,” he fur­ther not­ed, re­it­er­at­ing that since the pan­dem­ic and the con­tin­ued un­cer­tain­ty about tourism for the is­land this is a wel­comed ad­di­tion to To­ba­go’s mar­ket­ing and ad­ver­tis­ing thrust mov­ing in­to 2022.

Dr Acol­la Cameron, se­nior lec­tur­er in Tourism and Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences, UWI al­so agreed that the rank­ing is of im­mense val­ue to the mar­ket­ing ac­tiv­i­ties of the des­ti­na­tion.

She said in a post-COVID-19 con­text, as all Caribbean des­ti­na­tions con­tin­ue to re­cov­er and as­sume a com­pet­i­tive po­si­tion, the recog­ni­tion that To­ba­go is well suit­ed for na­ture-based ex­pe­ri­ences ties in very well in­to the pro­mo­tion of the des­ti­na­tion for health and well­ness trav­el. She al­so not­ed that the de­mand for this type of trav­el has dra­mat­i­cal­ly in­creased ow­ing to the men­tal, emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal im­pacts of the pan­dem­ic.

Ac­cord­ing to Cameron, da­ta in­di­cat­ed that the glob­al well­ness tourism mar­ket size was val­ued at $801.6 bil­lion in 2020, and is pro­ject­ed to reach $1,592.6 bil­lion by 2030, reg­is­ter­ing a com­pound an­nu­al growth rate of 7.2 per cent from 2021 to 2030.

Trav­ellers, she added, al­so look for des­ti­na­tions that can pro­vide an au­then­tic con­nec­tion to na­ture and cul­ture and as such unique and au­then­tic ex­pe­ri­ences built up­on in­dige­nous heal­ing prac­tices; na­tive plants and forests; spe­cial muds, min­er­als and wa­ters; ver­nac­u­lar ar­chi­tec­ture; street vibes; lo­cal in­gre­di­ents and culi­nary tra­di­tions; his­to­ry and cul­ture will con­tin­ue to stand out.

To­ba­go’s nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al en­vi­ron­ment of­fers these and more and will con­tin­ue to at­tract fur­ther in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion once prop­er­ly de­vel­oped, pack­aged and mar­ket­ed, Cameron ad­vised.

Main Ridge

The Main Ridge For­est Re­serve fea­tured as one of the main rea­sons why To­ba­go ranked num­ber one by Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic Mag­a­zine is un­doubt­ed­ly T&T’s most icon­ic con­ser­va­tion land­scape, said Aljoscha Wothke, di­rec­tor and CEO of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Re­search In­sti­tute of Char­lot­teville (ER­IC).

He ex­plained that it is a rare and large­ly in­tact Caribbean is­land ridge-to-ocean ecosys­tem that in­cludes: the world’s old­est trop­i­cal rain­for­est re­serve (Main Ridge), one es­tab­lished and two can­di­dates for nat­ur­al na­tion­al her­itage sites, a mul­ti­tude of pro­posed cul­tur­al na­tion­al her­itage lo­ca­tions, a planned ma­rine pro­tect­ed area of coral reefs and open ocean and im­por­tant bird and bio­di­ver­si­ty ar­eas.

Wothke al­so not­ed that North-East To­ba­go cross­es five con­ser­va­tion ar­eas, and var­i­ous ecosys­tems with 19 dis­tinct habi­tat types and is home to glob­al­ly unique and en­dan­gered plants and an­i­mals in­clud­ing 83 en­dan­gered species, 41 en­dem­ic species, and 48 in­ter­na­tion­al mi­gra­to­ry cri­te­ria species.

Over­all, 1,774 species are sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly record­ed, and the num­ber is count­ing, he added.

Based on its re­gion­al­ly out­stand­ing and rep­re­sen­ta­tive nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­itage, the Unit­ed Na­tions Ed­u­ca­tion­al, Sci­en­tif­ic and Cul­tur­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Un­esco), de­clared North-East To­ba­go a Man and the Bios­phere (MaB) Re­serve in late 2020, which now cov­ers over 200,000 acres of ter­res­tri­al and ma­rine hu­man-and eco-sys­tems and in­cludes 12 com­mu­ni­ties with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12,000 res­i­dents.

Ac­cord­ing to Wothke while in­ter­na­tion­al ac­co­lades and des­ig­na­tions recog­nise the beau­ty and in­tegri­ty of the gifts of na­ture with which the area has been blessed, it is more “a tool than a tro­phy; a pow­er­ful tool that stake­hold­ers can pick up and use to cre­ate per­son­al and com­mu­ni­ty ben­e­fits.”

Wothke ex­plained that in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion and des­ig­na­tions such as the UN­ESCO MaB, there­fore, make it eas­i­er for lo­cal en­tre­pre­neurs to es­tab­lish link­ages with in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies that are in­ter­est­ed in in­vest­ing or ap­ply­ing in­no­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies in the bios­phere re­serves.

“It al­so places North-East To­ba­go on the radar of in­ter­na­tion­al donors and de­vel­op­ment banks that would like to pro­vide fi­nanc­ing for green and blue eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment as well as cli­mate change re­silience projects and pro­grammes that are em­bed­ded in the con­text of the UN­ESCO MaB pro­gramme.

“The above ben­e­fits are for all res­i­dents of North-East To­ba­go and ex­tend to the en­tire is­land and the na­tion as a whole,” Wothke said,

adding that such ben­e­fits, he added, are not “the­o­ret­i­cal.”

“Those who have smelled the cake are al­ready jump­ing on the band­wag­on. If the Un­esco Man and the Bios­phere tool is not ful­ly ex­ploit­ed, To­ba­go and the coun­try at large will miss out on the most sig­nif­i­cant sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed to us in re­cent times,” Wothke main­tained.

More Achieve­ments

for To­ba­go

The recog­ni­tion by Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic has co­in­cid­ed with the re­cent Blue Flag award for boat tour op­er­a­tor Top Catch Char­ters in To­ba­go.

Blue Flag cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is be­stowed on­ly to beach­es, mari­nas and boat op­er­a­tors who demon­strate com­mit­ment to the en­vi­ron­ment, its guests’ ex­pe­ri­ence and re­spon­si­ble tourism. Top Catch Char­ters is now part of an elite class of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 80 Blue Flag award­ed boats world­wide and is cur­rent­ly the on­ly Blue Flag award­ed boat in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean.

Ac­cord­ing to Shiv­onne Pe­ters, man­ag­er of Top Catch Char­ters the Blue Flag award, rep­re­sents the ful­fil­ment of the goal to pro­vide eco-friend­ly tours to and trans­form To­ba­go’s tourism prod­uct.

“For us at Top Catch Char­ters, we be­gan our jour­ney with the con­cept of a sus­tain­able busi­ness mod­el; one that en­sured we min­imise our en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact. By de­vel­op­ing sim­ple strate­gies such as say­ing no to sin­gle-use plas­tics and pro­vid­ing al­ter­na­tives through lo­cal­ly sourced ma­te­ri­als such as cal­abash and bam­boo, we tru­ly be­lieved we could en­cour­age our clients to prac­tice sus­tain­able habits, well be­yond the du­ra­tion of our tours. We cer­tain­ly hope that this is the start of a move­ment in the tour in­dus­try, not on­ly in To­ba­go but in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Ul­ti­mate­ly, it proves for us and says to the world that sus­tain­able tourism is pos­si­ble in To­ba­go as we can suc­cess­ful­ly bal­ance eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties with en­vi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion,” Pe­ters ex­plained.

More­over, the Trav­el In­dus­try Club (TIC), a glob­al mem­ber­ship club cre­at­ed for in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el in­dus­try pro­fes­sion­als al­so award­ed To­ba­go sec­ond place in its des­ti­na­tion awards cer­e­mo­ny, based on the is­land’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives.

Joan­na Moses-Wothke, CEO of Green T&T and na­tion­al co­or­di­na­tor for the Blue Flag pro­gramme added that this is the first and on­ly Blue Flag cer­ti­fied boat op­er­a­tor in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean, the on­ly Blue Flag cer­ti­fied site in T&T and the first and on­ly Blue Flag cer­ti­fied site for To­ba­go.

“Top Catch Char­ters is trail­blaz­ing when it comes to en­vi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance for tour boat op­er­a­tors, es­pe­cial­ly on the heels of the Trav­el In­dus­try Club (TIC) Des­ti­na­tion Awards in which To­ba­go was giv­en sec­ond place. We at Green T&T are very proud to be a part of the ground-break­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty achieve­ments and we look for­ward to our con­tin­ued work with Top Catch Char­ters and oth­er tour boat op­er­a­tors and beach­es on the is­land,” Moses-Wothke said.