Among the main high­lights of T&T’s non-en­er­gy sec­tor in 2024 were ef­forts made to fur­ther pro­pel the coun­try as a lead­ing des­ti­na­tion in the re­gion, which would gen­er­ate much need for­eign ex­change.

T&T’s ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor will get an ad­di­tion­al boost with two ho­tels car­ry­ing the Hilton brand due to join Trinidad’s ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor in the next two years.

Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, Ran­dall Mitchell, in an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian, ex­plained that steel was al­ready in the ground, mark­ing the com­mence­ment for the con­struc­tion of the Hilton Hamp­ton Inn in Pi­ar­co, while the Hilton Gar­den Inn, to be lo­cat­ed at South Park in San Fer­nan­do, is ex­pect­ed to be­gin con­struc­tion in the first half of 2025.

The de­vel­op­er for Hilton Hamp­ton Inn in Pi­ar­co is Kall Ho­tels, while Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels is the de­vel­op­er for Hilton Gar­den Inn in South Park. Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels is the com­pa­ny be­hind the Au­to­graph by Brix and the Rocky Point De­vel­op­ment in To­ba­go

Mitchell em­pha­sised that the con­struc­tion of the new ho­tels not on­ly adds to T&T’s ex­ist­ing room stock but will fos­ter job cre­ation and have a pos­i­tive domi­no ef­fect for the econ­o­my.

The min­is­ter al­so not­ed that in fis­cal 2024, through the ho­tel room tax charged at 10 per cent on rooms, ho­tels con­tributed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $55 mil­lion to the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund in Trinidad and $8 mil­lion in To­ba­go.

In the 2024 fis­cal year, Mitchell said no­table up­grades were ap­proved for Xquis­ite Vil­la, Court­yard by Mar­riott, Tradewinds Ho­tel, and Air­port Suites, not­ing that this re­mains part of a broad­er strat­e­gy aimed at im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty of ac­com­mo­da­tions, cater­ing to a di­verse range of trav­ellers, and en­sur­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­main as a top tourist des­ti­na­tion.

More­so, this ties in with the coun­try’s con­tin­ued im­pe­tus to earn much need­ed forex.

“The strate­gic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of cor­po­ra­tions and con­sor­tiums in­to the tourism sec­tor, in par­tic­u­lar the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor (Had­co, John Aboud, Kalloo/Kall­co) as a way to earn not just prof­its, but al­so for­eign ex­change to sup­port their oth­er busi­ness­es,” Mitchell said.

He al­so em­pha­sised that as T&T con­tin­ues to chart its eco­nom­ic fu­ture, ac­com­mo­da­tion re­mains a vi­tal force in dri­ving both growth and sta­bil­i­ty, stat­ing that to main­tain the coun­try’s com­pet­i­tive edge, boost­ing the stock of avail­able ho­tel rooms is es­sen­tial.

The min­is­ter not­ed that in fis­cal 2024, through the ho­tel room tax charged at 10 per cent on rooms, ho­tels con­tributed ap­prox­i­mate­ly $55 mil­lion to the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund in Trinidad and $8 mil­lion in To­ba­go.

In 2025 Mitchell af­firmed that his min­istry will con­tin­ue to in­cen­tivise and work to at­tract in­vest­ment in­to the tourism sec­tor to grow the econ­o­my and in­crease val­ue, while di­ver­si­fy­ing rev­enues away from oil and gas.

With To­ba­go’s ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Aiport due to be opened by the mid­dle of this year, that should pro­vide a boost to tourist ar­rivals on the is­land.

The pro­posed Rocky Point ho­tel project, which is be­ing un­der­writ­ten by Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels T&T Ltd, John Aboud, pro­pos­es a 200-room Mar­riot-brand­ed ho­tel; 16 week­end re­treat cab­ins; 12 re­sort-style vil­las; 15 sin­gle-fam­i­ly dwelling units and 12 town hous­es. Among the sup­port­ing fa­cil­i­ties pro­posed for the project would in­clude play­grounds, parks, swim­ming pools, ten­nis courts, bas­ket­ball and beach vol­ley­ball courts, a run­ning track and ex­ten­sive open, green spaces and land­scaped ar­eas.yes­ter­day of­fered to sell one or two shares in the de­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny to To­ba­go or To­bag­o­ni­ans.

John Aboud, who is the chair­man of Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels T&T, of­fered to sell one or two of the 15 shares in he project’s hold­ing com­pa­ny to To­bag­on­ian groups or in­di­vid­u­als at a meet­ing host­ed by the To­ba­go arm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce and the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion at the Mount Irvine Bay Re­sort in Au­gust.

“They will have to pay for it, but it could be struc­tured where the Buc­coo Com­mu­ni­ty In­vest­ment Ltd could own one share of the ho­tel, which has 15 shares. So it’s not one share of a mil­lion shares, it is one share of 15,” said Aboud, in his pre­sen­ta­tion at the meet­ing. The idea was im­me­di­ate­ly greet­ed by a round of ap­plause from the au­di­ence at the meet­ing, which num­bered over 70 in­di­vid­u­als.

Aboud’s pro­pos­al to sell a share or shares in the project to To­ba­go or a To­ba­go com­mu­ni­ty was very well re­ceived by two lead­ers on the is­land, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the meet­ing.

Cur­tis Williams, the pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go arm of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, said his phone start­ed ring­ing off the hook when Aboud made the an­nounce­ment.

He said what the of­fer means is that To­ba­go or To­bag­o­ni­ans could have an own­er­ship stake of the de­vel­op­ment, which in­cludes a Mar­riot-brand­ed ho­tel.

“That’s big. That is re­al­ly big be­cause what we are talk­ing about could in­clude the as­so­ci­a­tions and the co­op­er­a­tives in To­ba­go, or in­di­vid­u­als on the is­land, who are will­ing to put in their funds and will be able to get a share of the project,” said Williams, adding, “I think that is a big plus and if there is one take­away from this meet­ing, it is that To­bag­o­ni­ans can be part of this project in terms of rev­enue com­ing back to them from an in­vest­ment.”

Pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, Al­pha Lorde, de­scribed the of­fer of shares to To­bag­o­ni­ans or To­ba­go as “fan­tas­tic.”

Lorde said, “I think cre­at­ing re­al wealth and along the way de­vel­op­ing eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, re­quires re­al in­vest­ment. A share in­vest­ment in a project like this is start­ing point to do­ing that.”

Last year, Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try con­tin­ued to be the en­gine room dri­ving the growth of this coun­try’s non-en­er­gy ex­ports as T&T forged on in its quest to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my away from its de­pen­dence of oil and gas.

In her con­tri­bu­tion to the 2025 bud­get de­bate in Oc­to­ber, Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try, Paula Gopee-Scoon out­lined the thrust to ex­pand for­eign mar­ket op­por­tu­ni­ties, not­ing that from 2015 to 2024, 71 trade mis­sions and trade shows gen­er­at­ed hun­dreds of ex­port leads.

Giv­ing a break­down of some of the trade mis­sions, Gopee-Scoon said the one which took place in Ghana in March for in­stance, gen­er­at­ed re­sults for Lazuri Ap­par­el (ap­par­el man­u­fac­tur­er in Barataria), not­ing that it is cur­rent­ly sourc­ing raw ma­te­ri­als from Ghana as in­put in­to the com­pa­ny’s man­u­fac­tur­ing process.

The min­is­ter fur­ther stat­ed that Un­queue (an ICT ser­vice provider) se­cured ap­provals for the use of its soft­ware in Ghana, Benin, To­go, Liberia, and Sier­ra Leone through a li­cens­ing agree­ment and that Bermudez Bis­cuit Com­pa­ny Ltd and KC Con­fec­tionery Ltd have ad­vanced in en­ter­ing the West African mar­ket.

Gopee-Scoon fur­ther out­lined, “From 2022, $102.8 bil­lion; ex­pand­ed by 5.8 per cent to 2023, $105.5 bil­lion; ex­pand­ing again by 2.5 per cent with a pro­ject­ed ex­pan­sion in 2024 of $107.9 bil­lion; and the fact is, that the non-en­er­gy sec­tor has grown.”