An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

As Trinidad and To­ba­go faces a down­turn in in­ter­na­tion­al tourist ar­rivals, tourism stake­hold­ers have be­come in­creas­ing­ly vo­cal about the need for ur­gent re­form, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ar­eas of des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing and for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion.

The coun­try’s tourism sec­tor, once a key con­trib­u­tor to its for­eign ex­change earn­ings, now strug­gles to at­tract vis­i­tors, leav­ing the econ­o­my vul­ner­a­ble and re­liant on oth­er in­dus­tries.

In the 2025 bud­get, the then named Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture, and the Arts pre­vi­ous­ly, re­ceived an al­lo­ca­tion of $$354,714,300.

In terms of in­ter­na­tion­al tourist ar­rivals, the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ticalOf­fice (CSO) said there was a de­crease in in­ter­na­tion­al tourist ar­rivals in Jan­u­ary 2025, a fall of 25 per cent com­pared to the same month in 2024.

This trend was al­so not­ed in a more gen­er­al re­lease in Au­gust 2025, which men­tioned a one per cent de­crease in Ju­ly fig­ures com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year, and a 10 per cent de­crease in the num­ber of for­eign vis­i­tors in May 2025. The CSO’s da­ta for June 2025 re­port­ed a two per cent de­crease in tourist num­bers com­pared to June 2024, and while there was an in­crease in vis­i­tors from North Amer­i­ca, de­creas­es in vis­i­tors from Great Britain nine per cent, and Con­ti­nen­tal Eu­rope 21 per cent were ob­served.

The Small Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Own­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go (STAOTT), as well as oth­er in­dus­try lead­ers, are now call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to take de­ci­sive ac­tion in the up­com­ing bud­get to ad­dress the sys­temic is­sues af­fect­ing the sec­tor.

At the heart of the con­cerns is a glar­ing lack of ef­fec­tive mar­ket­ing for both Trinidad and To­ba­go. De­spite hav­ing a wealth of nat­ur­al beau­ty, cul­tur­al her­itage, and unique ex­pe­ri­ences to of­fer, Trinidad is vast­ly un­der-mar­ket­ed when com­pared to its Caribbean coun­ter­parts.

While To­ba­go has some­what man­aged to main­tain its mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, with sup­port from the To­ba­go Tourism Agency, Trinidad has not seen a co­he­sive, na­tion­al-lev­el mar­ket­ing plan to pro­mote it as a des­ti­na­tion in its own right, said STAOTT pres­i­dent Denise Ale­ong.

She voiced the frus­tra­tion of many op­er­a­tors when she said, “We don’t know what the mar­ket­ing plan is” for Trinidad.

With re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers ex­posed to ad­ver­tise­ments from oth­er Caribbean des­ti­na­tions, many are turn­ing to places where they have a clear­er un­der­stand­ing of what to ex­pect. This lack of vis­i­bil­i­ty on a glob­al scale is di­rect­ly im­pact­ing the sec­tor’s abil­i­ty to gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change, Ale­ong said.

A key con­se­quence of this mar­ket­ing gap is the steady de­cline in in­ter­na­tion­al tourist ar­rivals, ex­ac­er­bat­ing the coun­try’s for­eign ex­change crunch. In par­tic­u­lar, small ac­com­mo­da­tion op­er­a­tors such as bed-and-break­fasts, guest­hous­es, and mi­cro-ho­tels are bear­ing the brunt of this lack of for­eign tourist traf­fic, Ale­ong said.

She said with oc­cu­pan­cy rates plum­met­ing by as much as 40 per cent to 50 per cent, these busi­ness­es strug­gle to main­tain prof­itabil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing off-peak sea­sons. Even ma­jor events like the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) have failed to pro­vide a sig­nif­i­cant boost for small tourism op­er­a­tors, who re­port low lev­els of book­ings de­spite the at­ten­tion gen­er­at­ed by such events.

It is ev­i­dent that with­out a com­pre­hen­sive mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, the tourism sec­tor can­not ful­ly cap­i­tal­ize on these op­por­tu­ni­ties, said Ale­ong

More­over, tourism’s role in for­eign ex­change gen­er­a­tion can­not be over­stat­ed.

As Ale­ong not­ed, “We are the gen­er­a­tors of for­eign ex­change.” The tourism in­dus­try not on­ly brings in dol­lars through the spend­ing of in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors but al­so has a mul­ti­pli­er ef­fect on oth­er sec­tors.

She point­ed out that vis­i­tors who spend mon­ey on ho­tels, tours, food, and lo­cal ex­pe­ri­ences sup­port in­dus­tries such as man­u­fac­tur­ing, agri­cul­ture, and re­tail, fur­ther cir­cu­lat­ing for­eign cur­ren­cy through­out the econ­o­my.

How­ev­er, with in­ter­na­tion­al ar­rivals down and the tourism sec­tor strug­gling, these op­por­tu­ni­ties for for­eign ex­change are sim­ply not be­ing re­al­ized.

In ad­di­tion to mar­ket­ing, STAOTT and oth­er tourism stake­hold­ers are call­ing for a more fo­cused ap­proach to sup­port­ing mi­cro and small

tourism busi­ness­es. These en­ter­pris­es are crit­i­cal to pro­vid­ing the au­then­tic, lo­cal ex­pe­ri­ences that many trav­el­ers seek but are of­ten over­looked in fa­vor of larg­er ho­tels and re­sorts.

Ale­ong has point­ed out that many vis­i­tors pre­fer stay­ing in small­er, lo­cal­ly-owned ac­com­mo­da­tions rather than large ho­tels, which of­fer a more gener­ic, in­ter­na­tion­alised ex­pe­ri­ence. She stress­es that more re­sources should be fun­neled in­to sup­port­ing these small op­er­a­tors, who, de­spite their size, con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the coun­try’s tourism prod­uct.

In To­ba­go, the sit­u­a­tion is no bet­ter. Regi­nald MacLean, Pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA), high­light­ed the need

for a bil­lion-dol­lar rein­vest­ment in­to the is­land’s tourism in­fra­struc­ture. This in­cludes not on­ly ho­tels but al­so restau­rants, guest­hous­es, and pub­lic fa­cil­i­ties like beach­es and parks, which are es­sen­tial to the tourism ex­pe­ri­ence.

MacLean lament­ed the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of pub­lic fa­cil­i­ties, point­ing out that many are now closed or di­lap­i­dat­ed due to a lack of vis­i­tors. In his view, fix­ing To­ba­go’s tourism prod­uct re­quires more than just up­grad­ing ho­tels and re­quires a holis­tic ap­proach that re­vi­tal­izes the en­tire tourism ecosys­tem.

While the gov­ern­ment has made some ef­forts to en­cour­age pri­vate in­vest­ment, such as through tax in­cen­tives for ho­tels, the lack of sub­stan­tial fund­ing for des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing has left To­ba­go in a state of stag­na­tion.

MacLean al­so called for the re­peal or mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the 2007 In­vest­ment Act in To­ba­go, which he be­lieves has ham­pered the growth of the is­land’s tourism sec­tor. He ar­gued that while many Caribbean na­tions, such as St. Vin­cent, are push­ing for­ward with tourism projects, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s bu­reau­crat­ic hur­dles pre­vent time­ly ap­provals for new de­vel­op­ments.

The de­lay in ap­prov­ing the Mar­riott Ho­tel and oth­er high-pro­file projects is a prime ex­am­ple of the coun­try’s in­ef­fi­cient reg­u­la­to­ry process­es, which of­ten de­ter po­ten­tial in­vestors.

Ac­cord­ing to MacLean, this slow pace of ap­proval is cost­ing the coun­try valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ties to mod­ern­ize its tourism in­fra­struc­ture and at­tract high-qual­i­ty in­vest­ments.

Tour op­er­a­tors

Lor­raine Pouchet, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (TTI­TOA), ex­pec­ta­tions for the up­com­ing bud­get

are clear, tar­get­ted al­lo­ca­tions that will not on­ly as­sist in re­cov­er­ing from the pan­dem­ic’s im­pact but al­so bol­ster the coun­try’s com­pet­i­tive edge as a tourist des­ti­na­tion. She has em­pha­sized the need for in­creased fund­ing for in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket­ing, grants for small and medi­um-sized tourism op­er­a­tors, and the up­grad­ing of in­fra­struc­ture that en­hances the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence. Train­ing for tour guides and op­er­a­tors is al­so a crit­i­cal area, en­sur­ing that the qual­i­ty of ser­vice meets in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

More­over, she has ad­vo­cat­ed for long-term in­vest­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in niche tourism sec­tors like eco-tourism, sports tourism, and cul­tur­al her­itage tours. These are sec­tors with the po­ten­tial to gen­er­ate sus­tain­able for­eign ex­change earn­ings while re­duc­ing the na­tion’s re­liance on tra­di­tion­al tourism mar­kets.

CEO of Green Tours To­ba­go, Leroy George’s per­spec­tive on To­ba­go’s tourism high­lights the need for a more com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to en­vi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion.

He is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned with pro­tect­ing the pris­tine nat­ur­al as­sets of To­ba­go, such as the Bon Ac­cord La­goon and the Buc­coo Reef. These

sites, fa­mous for their bi­o­lu­mi­nes­cence and coral reefs, are key at­trac­tions that set To­ba­go apart from oth­er Caribbean des­ti­na­tions.

How­ev­er, George points out the ten­sion be­tween en­vi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion and eco­nom­ic growth.

While he sup­ports the de­vel­op­ment of in­ter­na­tion­al tourism, he cau­tions against overde­vel­op­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the push for large, all-in­clu­sive re­sorts on en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive lands such as No Man’s Land.

He warns that such projects could de­stroy the very nat­ur­al beau­ty that at­tracts vis­i­tors to the is­land.

One of the crit­i­cal is­sues George ad­dress­es is the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion aimed at pro­tect­ing To­ba­go’s ma­rine and coastal en­vi­ron­ments. While he sup­ports these mea­sures, he ques­tions whether they will be im­ple­ment­ed with enough con­sul­ta­tion from the stake­hold­ers most af­fect­ed tour op­er­a­tors, fish­er­men, and en­vi­ron­men­tal sci­en­tists.

On the sub­ject of for­eign ver­sus do­mes­tic tourism, both Pouchet and George agree that the trend of re­ly­ing heav­i­ly on lo­cal tourists could lim­it the is­land’s growth. Do­mes­tic tourism re­mains a cru­cial rev­enue source, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing school breaks, but the de­cline in for­eign tourist ar­rivals over the past few years, fu­eled by the pan­dem­ic and glob­al un­cer­tain­ties, has made it clear that the tourism sec­tor must di­ver­si­fy its base.

As the gov­ern­ment pre­pares to al­lo­cate funds in the up­com­ing bud­get, there is a clear call for a more strate­gic, in­clu­sive ap­proach to tourism de­vel­op­ment, one that bal­ances the needs of the en­vi­ron­ment, lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties, and the econ­o­my.