Curtis Williams
curtis.williams@guardian.co.tt
The decision to restrict travellers from Germany, Spain and France from entering Trinidad and Tobago due to the outbreak of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) is likely to hurt tourism in Tobago.
Travellers whose flights originated from Italy, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Iran and China had already been subject to a 14-day wait after leaving those countries before they are allowed to enter Trinidad and Tobago and on Tuesday Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced government had added the three latest European nations.
Chief Executive Officer of the Tobago Tourism Agency (TTA) Louis Lewis said the island was particularly concerned about the impact on visitors from Germany.
"Germany represents 16 percent of our source markets and therefore it will have an impact." Lewis told Guardian Media in an interview on Wednesday.
TTA's CEO said he is to hold a conference call with officials from Condor Airlines which has a weekly flight to Tobago bringing on average 115 passengers to the island.
The flight that originates in the Deutschland city of Frankfurt is shared with Barbados and is Tobago's only direct flight out of mainland Europe.
Lewis told Guardian Media: "We do not know what this means for the flight since it is coming out of Germany. We will also have to talk to the people at the Airport's Authority to find out what the implications are. Remember this announcement was only made last night so we are still trying to work out the implications."
He added that the flight also serves the Scandinavian countries that connect through Germany on their way to the sister isle.
Lewis said so far Tobago's tourism has not been hurt but the COVID-19 outbreak but the island was expecting the falloff to come.
Before the advent of the outbreak Tobago had seen a 20 percent up-tick in visitors in January, year on year.
