Raphael John-Lall

Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador to T&T, Ál­varo Sánchez Cordero, is con­fi­dent that busi­ness and oth­er ties will con­tin­ue to grow as for the first time in years, tourists from T&T land­ed in Venezuela.

“T&T tourists com­ing to Mar­gari­ta month­ly rep­re­sents an eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit for Venezuela. How­ev­er, this must be seen com­pre­hen­sive­ly. First­ly, Venezuela has tremen­dous tourism po­ten­tial as a mul­ti-des­tiny coun­try. But for many years, we dis-in­vest­ed in tourism, as we most­ly re­lied on oil rev­enues.

“Nonethe­less, for the past 20 years or so, we have gone through a process of eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion that has in­clud­ed tourism, as well as oth­er sec­tors, as a fo­cal point for for­eign rev­enue earn­ing. Al­so, our tourism prod­uct in­cludes the par­tic­i­pa­tion of lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties. There­fore, the ben­e­fits are equal­ly shared with the lo­ca­tions,” he told the Busi­ness Guardian.

The Venezue­lan Am­bas­sador blamed the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic for the halt in flights be­tween the two coun­tries rather than a “cool­ing” of the re­la­tion­ship.

“I must say that the three-year hia­tus of di­rect flights be­tween Venezuela and T&T had noth­ing to do with cool­ing of re­la­tions. It was sim­ply be­cause of the pan­dem­ic. So, it is on­ly now that we are glad­ly wit­ness­ing the re-es­tab­lish­ment of air con­nec­tiv­i­ty by two neigh­bour­ing and friend­ly na­tions with lots of cul­tur­al and an­ces­tral links. How­ev­er, there is no doubt that the re-es­tab­lish­ment of di­rect flights in­creas­es all pos­si­bil­i­ties for en­gage­ment in var­i­ous ar­eas, not just tourism, but al­so com­merce, trade, busi­ness, ed­u­ca­tion, and cul­ture.”

Finance director of Hammock Travel Carol Salazar

Last Thurs­day for the first time in three years, there was a di­rect flight with 110 pas­sen­gers from T&T to Mar­gari­ta, Venezuela on Venezue­lan air­line Ru­ta­ca.

This was re­port­ed last Wednes­day by the Venezue­lan Min­is­ter for Tourism, Alí Padrón, who de­scribed it as “shop­ping tourism” that takes place dur­ing the East­er hol­i­days

Padrón said that these types of con­nec­tions are pos­i­tive for com­mer­cial ex­change in Venezuela since in Mar­gari­ta there have been con­nec­tions with Rus­sia, Cu­ba, and soon with Poland, which gen­er­ates prof­its for the Venezue­lan econ­o­my. For three years there were no di­rect com­mer­cial flights from Trinidad to Mar­gari­ta, Venezuela.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, to trav­el to Mar­gari­ta from Trinidad, a trav­eller had to take a flight to Pana­ma and from there to Cara­cas and then to Pol­mar.

There have been two di­rect char­ter flights from T&T to Por­la­mar, Mar­gari­ta un­der this new agree­ment be­tween T&T and Venezuela. Specif­i­cal­ly, there were two flights de­part­ing from Trinidad to the is­land of Mar­gari­ta be­tween April 6 and 10, and an­oth­er from Trinidad be­tween April 10 and 14.

Fi­nance di­rec­tor of Ham­mock Trav­el based in Vic­to­ria Av­enue, Port-of-Spain, Car­ol Salazar, which does the trav­el pack­ages, told the Busi­ness Guardian that now that the pan­dem­ic is in the past, both Gov­ern­ments are us­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to open the bor­ders be­tween the two coun­tries.

Venezuela’s Tourism Minister Ali Padron meets T&T tourists at the Santiago Marino International Airport in Margarita last Thursday.

“These pack­ages start­ed in April. Be­cause of the sit­u­a­tion with the COVID pan­dem­ic the bor­ders were closed be­tween both coun­tries. The Min­istry of Tourism in Venezuela and the Gov­ern­ment of T&T did an agree­ment to open these flights on­ly for tourism. So T&T na­tion­als can now trav­el to Mar­gari­ta just for a while. Right now we have five-day pack­ages.”

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from Ham­mock Trav­el’s Face­book page, five days and four nights at Sun­sol Ecoland Re­sort in Mar­gari­ta costs $5,380 while five days and four nights at the Vene­tur Ho­tel in Mar­gari­ta would cost $3,900.

Salazar said these prices in­clude the plane tick­et, trans­fer to the ho­tel, all meals and drinks and ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion for one per­son.

She spoke pos­i­tive­ly of T&T na­tion­als want­i­ng to va­ca­tion in Mar­gari­ta.

“They have been re­al­ly re­cep­tive. The plane is go­ing with 110 peo­ple. So it is ba­si­cal­ly sold out. The peo­ple of T&T love Mar­gari­ta. They have al­ways loved Mar­gari­ta. It’s a nice place to shop. Right now the sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela has im­proved a lot.”

Eco­nom­ic Re­la­tions

The re­turn of T&T tourists comes at a time when Venezuela’s econ­o­my is grow­ing again af­ter a deep eight-year re­ces­sion where Venezuela’s econ­o­my lost 75 per cent of its size, ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund.

Venezuela’s Gov­ern­ment has be­gun to lib­er­alise the econ­o­my and the IMF projects that Venezuela’s econ­o­my will grow by 6.5 per cent in 2023, the high­est in Latin Amer­i­ca.

Against this back­drop, there are oth­er projects be­tween both coun­tries as Venezuela and T&T are dis­cussing the joint ex­plo­ration of the Drag­on Gas field.

There are al­so over 16,000 Venezue­lans who are reg­is­tered to work in T&T giv­en the eco­nom­ic de­pres­sion Venezuela suf­fered in the re­cent past.