Tourism op­er­a­tors are call­ing for greater in­vest­ment in the sec­tor, but their con­cerns go be­yond the size of the an­nu­al al­lo­ca­tion.

They want ex­ist­ing tourism busi­ness­es to be able to ac­cess fi­nanc­ing, ag­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion stock to be up­grad­ed, des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing to be bet­ter mea­sured, tourism da­ta to be im­proved and gov­ern­ment agen­cies to work more close­ly with the pri­vate sec­tor.

The con­cerns come as tourism was al­lo­cat­ed $286.1 mil­lion in fis­cal 2026, equiv­a­lent to 0.46 per cent of the $62.77 bil­lion na­tion­al bud­get. The Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism re­ceived $339.8 mil­lion.

For op­er­a­tors, how­ev­er, the head­line al­lo­ca­tions do not tell the full sto­ry and it is not a bud­get wish list.

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald Mac Lean be­lieves the is­land’s tourism prod­uct has reached a point where sig­nif­i­cant rein­vest­ment is re­quired.

He re­called re­ceiv­ing a graph­ic of a jer­sey with the mes­sage: “We have oil and gas, we don’t have tourism.”

For Mac Lean, the mes­sage cap­tures the long-stand­ing con­cern that tourism has not re­ceived the sus­tained in­vest­ment re­quired to be­come a stronger pil­lar of the econ­o­my.

“We are con­tin­u­al­ly talk­ing about a bil­lion dol­lars to be put in­to tourism in To­ba­go, but na­da to date. Can it get any worse?” Mac Lean stressed.

He wants about $1 bil­lion in­vest­ed over 18 months to two years, with the fo­cus on im­me­di­ate im­prove­ments to the ex­ist­ing tourism prod­uct.

“Every ho­tel in To­ba­go is in dire need of re­fur­bish­ment, and un­for­tu­nate­ly, with­out rein­vest­ment in­to the ex­ist­ing plant, To­ba­go’s tourism will con­tin­ue to fail,” he said.

Mac Lean’s con­cern is that in­vest­ment in in­fra­struc­ture alone will not bring more vis­i­tors if the ac­com­mo­da­tion and over­all vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence do not meet mar­ket ex­pec­ta­tions.

“Air­lines do not come be­cause of a new air­port ter­mi­nal; they come when an is­land has good qual­i­ty rooms, things to do, great cul­ture and great peo­ple,” he said.

He be­lieves much of To­ba­go’s ex­ist­ing room stock re­quires re­fur­bish­ment and points to wa­ter sup­ply, elec­tric­i­ty and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture prob­lems af­fect­ing ho­tels.

Mac Lean al­so wants To­ba­go to tar­get mar­kets clos­er to home, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Caribbean and South Amer­i­ca.

“Our clos­est neigh­bours are the Caribbean and South Amer­i­ca, and we refuse to tap in­to these mar­kets,” he out­lined.

He con­sid­ers the ap­prox­i­mate­ly $50 mil­lion avail­able for To­ba­go des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing in­ad­e­quate, ar­gu­ing that on­ly a frac­tion reach­es the ac­tu­al mar­ket­ing ef­fort.

Mac Lean al­so wants changes to the cost of op­er­at­ing ho­tels and re­sorts, in­clud­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of du­ty-free sta­tus for To­ba­go or the re­moval of du­ties and ex­cise tax­es on ho­tel in­puts.

Air ac­cess re­mains an­oth­er ma­jor is­sue

He wants Caribbean Air­lines to play a stronger role in de­vel­op­ing the tourism mar­ket and be­lieves the air­bridge must be ad­dressed.

He al­so point­ed to the de­cline in in­ter­na­tion­al pas­sen­ger ar­rivals to To­ba­go over the years as ev­i­dence of the need for a dif­fer­ent ap­proach.

His broad­er con­cern is that the is­land lacks the da­ta need­ed to prop­er­ly mea­sure what is hap­pen­ing in the sec­tor and de­ter­mine where in­ter­ven­tions are pro­duc­ing re­sults.

The fi­nanc­ing prob­lem

For Trinidad’s in­com­ing tour op­er­a­tors, the chal­lenge is less about ho­tel re­fur­bish­ment and more about build­ing busi­ness­es that can sell the des­ti­na­tion in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Lor­raine Pouchet, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion, said gov­ern­ment-sup­port­ed train­ing has been use­ful, in­clud­ing pro­grammes cov­er­ing tour guid­ing, des­ti­na­tion pack­ag­ing and oth­er ar­eas.

The train­ing is gen­er­al­ly sub­sidised, al­low­ing in­dus­try mem­bers to par­tic­i­pate with­out hav­ing to car­ry the full cost.

But Pouchet wants greater in­sti­tu­tion­al sup­port for tourism as­so­ci­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those that lost mem­bers and re­sources dur­ing the COVID-19 pe­ri­od.

“What we have been ask­ing for for years, but we nev­er get any kind of feed­back on it re­al­ly, is that we need to have in­sti­tu­tion­al sup­port and strength­en­ing,” she said.

That sup­port could help as­so­ci­a­tions with mar­ket­ing, of­fice space, ad­min­is­tra­tive staff and oth­er ba­sic re­quire­ments need­ed to main­tain their op­er­a­tions and rep­re­sent mem­bers ef­fec­tive­ly.

Pouchet al­so be­lieves in­com­ing tour op­er­a­tors face a struc­tur­al fi­nanc­ing prob­lem be­cause their prod­uct is an ex­pe­ri­ence rather than a phys­i­cal as­set.

“If some­body goes for a ho­tel, they’ll get the mon­ey be­cause it’s a tan­gi­ble prod­uct. But we are an in­tan­gi­ble prod­uct,” she said.

She wants gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er mech­a­nisms to un­der­write or guar­an­tee fi­nanc­ing for vi­able tourism projects.

Des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing is an­oth­er area where Pouchet wants change.

She re­called a pe­ri­od when room tax rev­enue was set aside for des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing. She wants ded­i­cat­ed fund­ing for mar­ket­ing re­stored be­cause, in her view, the coun­try can­not ex­pect vis­i­tors to ar­rive if the des­ti­na­tion is not con­sis­tent­ly pro­mot­ed.

She al­so wants tour op­er­a­tors to be in­clud­ed in in­ter­na­tion­al tourism trade shows.

Pouchet has rep­re­sent­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion at the World Trav­el Mar­ket and be­lieves op­er­a­tors should be part of the teams pro­mot­ing T&T be­cause they are the busi­ness­es that pack­age and sell the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence.

“A CEO or man­ag­er go­ing out to mar­ket the des­ti­na­tion by them­selves is not go­ing to cut it be­cause you need to have the tour op­er­a­tors who pack­age the des­ti­na­tion,” she said.

Those pack­ages can in­clude air trav­el, ac­com­mo­da­tion, air­port trans­fers, tours, cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ences and food.

Pouchet al­so be­lieves the in­dus­try needs bet­ter da­ta to de­ter­mine whether mar­ket­ing ex­pen­di­ture is pro­duc­ing ac­tu­al re­turns.

“If you spend mon­ey to at­tend a trade show and you can­not see, based on sta­tis­ti­cal gath­er­ing af­ter­wards, that out of this trade show we were able to at­tract so many new vis­i­tors and so on, then you’re spend­ing mon­ey do­ing it, and you win,” she said.

Her con­cern is that with­out re­li­able da­ta, the sec­tor can­not prop­er­ly iden­ti­fy suc­cess­ful in­ter­ven­tions or avoid re­peat­ing mis­takes.

“If you don’t have the prop­er stats and you don’t know what the his­to­ry re­al­ly is, you’re doomed to fail. And you’re doomed to re­peat the mis­takes,” she said.

Pouchet al­so wel­comed the ap­point­ment of new Tourism Trinidad Ltd chair­man Ben­ny Hatem, de­scrib­ing him as open to dis­cus­sions on how the or­gan­i­sa­tion can get greater val­ue from trade shows and bet­ter mea­sure the re­turn on its tourism mar­ket­ing in­vest­ment.

Small busi­ness­es strug­gle to ac­cess sup­port

For small­er ac­com­mo­da­tion op­er­a­tors, the ex­pe­ri­ence is dif­fer­ent again.

Denise Ale­ong-Thomas, pres­i­dent of the Small Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Own­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go, point­ed to the Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Up­grade Pro­gramme as one of the main gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tions avail­able to the sec­tor over the past three years.

The pro­gramme pro­vides re­im­burse­ment for ap­proved up­grades. Small­er prop­er­ties with one to six rooms can ac­cess up to $150,000, while larg­er prop­er­ties can re­ceive sub­stan­tial­ly more.

But Ale­ong-Thomas be­lieves the struc­ture cre­ates a sig­nif­i­cant ob­sta­cle for small­er busi­ness­es be­cause op­er­a­tors have to find the mon­ey to com­plete the work be­fore re­ceiv­ing re­im­burse­ment.

“The thing is, you have to put all the mon­ey in ad­vance, do the work, and then get the re­im­burse­ment, and that is a lit­tle chal­lenge for some peo­ple be­cause they don’t have the mon­ey up front,” she said.

Dis­cus­sions have tak­en place with the Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny on pos­si­ble fi­nanc­ing arrange­ments that could help op­er­a­tors fund the work be­fore re­ceiv­ing the re­im­burse­ment.

Ale­ong-Thomas al­so point­ed to the lim­it­ed take-up among small­er prop­er­ties.

She not­ed that her or­gan­i­sa­tion had ad­vo­cat­ed for the up­grade in­cen­tive to be opened to the wider ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor, but on­ly one small prop­er­ty with­in her as­so­ci­a­tion was able to ac­cess it.

Her po­si­tion is that the pro­gramme should con­tin­ue, but the ap­pli­ca­tion and fi­nanc­ing arrange­ments should bet­ter re­flect the cir­cum­stances of mi­cro and small tourism busi­ness­es.

“More sup­port is need­ed for the small­er, mi­cro, the small­er and mi­cro tourism op­er­a­tors,” she said.

There has been progress in oth­er ar­eas.

Ale­ong-Thomas point­ed to train­ing in dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing and e-com­merce, pric­ing and pack­ag­ing, sto­ry­telling and oth­er ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing pro­grammes through Tourism Trinidad.

Small op­er­a­tors have al­so re­ceived op­por­tu­ni­ties to pro­mote their busi­ness­es through the Tourism Trinidad web­site.

Her as­sess­ment is there­fore not that the gov­ern­ment has done noth­ing. Rather, the sup­port that ex­ists needs to be made more ac­ces­si­ble and ex­pand­ed where gaps re­main.

She al­so wants a clear­er frame­work for pri­vate-sec­tor par­tic­i­pa­tion in tourism pol­i­cy.

In pre­vi­ous years, she re­called a stand­ing com­mit­tee for tourism that brought to­geth­er in­dus­try stake­hold­ers, the min­istry and the then des­ti­na­tion man­age­ment or­gan­i­sa­tion to dis­cuss is­sues and pol­i­cy.

She be­lieves a sim­i­lar struc­ture would give small­er op­er­a­tors a more di­rect chan­nel in­to gov­ern­ment de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

Ale­ong-Thomas al­so raised ques­tions about the emer­gence of the “Vis­it Trin­ba­go” brand­ing and the ab­sence of broad­er con­sul­ta­tion on the des­ti­na­tion’s mar­ket­ing di­rec­tion.

She wants greater clar­i­ty on the coun­try’s over­all tourism brand and mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy.

Be­yond the al­lo­ca­tion

The Min­istry of Fi­nance’s 2026 Draft Es­ti­mates for the De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme in­cludes $13.3 mil­lion for tourism-re­lat­ed ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing tourism sites and at­trac­tions, the ho­tel and guest­house room-stock up­grade in­cen­tive, fes­ti­val mar­ket de­vel­op­ment, tur­tle tourism, avian ini­tia­tives, the Tourism In­dus­try En­tre­pre­neur­ial Strength­en­ing Project and in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing for Tourism Trinidad.

But op­er­a­tors’ con­cerns show why a sin­gle bud­get fig­ure can­not cap­ture the sec­tor’s con­di­tion.

Mac Lean high­light­ed that the pri­or­i­ty is restor­ing To­ba­go’s ac­com­mo­da­tion prod­uct, im­prov­ing air ac­cess, fix­ing in­fra­struc­ture prob­lems and in­creas­ing mar­ket­ing.

For Pouchet, it is build­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of tour op­er­a­tors and as­so­ci­a­tions, cre­at­ing bet­ter ac­cess to fi­nance, in­volv­ing the pri­vate sec­tor in des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing and mea­sur­ing whether mar­ket­ing ex­pen­di­ture pro­duces vis­i­tors.

And, for Ale­ong-Thomas, it is mak­ing ex­ist­ing up­grade pro­grammes work­able for small busi­ness­es and cre­at­ing a clear­er chan­nel through which op­er­a­tors can in­flu­ence pol­i­cy.