Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed (TTL) has con­firmed that Trinidad is set to wel­come 20 cruise calls from 11 dif­fer­ent cruise lines for the new cruise sea­son—in­clud­ing six in­au­gur­al vis­its, which the tourism body de­scribes as “im­pres­sive”.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion re­cent­ly host­ed the of­fi­cial launch of the 2024-2025 cruise sea­son at the Port of Spain Cruise Ship Com­plex, on Fri­day 15 No­vem­ber 2024.  The high­light of the event was the in­au­gur­al vis­it of the MS Nau­ti­ca.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from TTL, there is “grow­ing in­ter­est from in­ter­na­tion­al cruise lines”, which is “ce­ment­ing Trinidad’s sta­tus as a pre­ferred stop in the Caribbean.”

TTL points to well-known cruise lines such as Seabourn/Car­ni­val Cor­po­ra­tion, Ocea­nia Cruis­es, Sev­en Seas Cruis­es, Princess Cruis­es, and Ha­pag-Lloyd, all of which call on Trinidad dur­ing cruise sea­son. The tourism body al­so notes that Princess Cruis­es is sched­uled for four calls dur­ing the 2024-2025 sea­son, while Roy­al Caribbean’s EPIC will make five con­sec­u­tive vis­its dur­ing Car­ni­val.

Chair­man of Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed, Cliff Hamil­ton, ob­served that Trinidad’s ap­peal as a must-vis­it des­ti­na­tion con­tin­ues to rise.

“These achieve­ments are the di­rect re­sult of strate­gic ini­tia­tives by Tourism Trinidad to boost the is­land’s vis­i­bil­i­ty on the glob­al tourism stage,” he point­ed out.  “The team has ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al tradeshows, pro­mot­ed the unique of­fer­ings of Des­ti­na­tion Trinidad on­line, built strong re­la­tion­ships with glob­al part­ners, and en­sured that the des­ti­na­tion meets the high stan­dards ex­pect­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors.”

He added: “The ar­rival of the MS Nau­ti­ca to­day is a tes­ta­ment to the hard work and strate­gic vi­sion of Tourism Trinidad in the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket, as well as our on­go­ing ef­forts to po­si­tion Trinidad as a pre­mier des­ti­na­tion in the Caribbean."

And CEO of Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed, Cor­nell Buck­radee, un­der­scored the tremen­dous op­por­tu­ni­ties that the cruise sec­tor brings to lo­cal stake­hold­ers and the broad­er tourism land­scape.

"Every cruise call is a gate­way to eco­nom­ic growth, job cre­ation, and in­valu­able ex­po­sure for our lo­cal tour op­er­a­tors, ar­ti­sans, taxi dri­vers, and small busi­ness­es," Buck­radee stat­ed. "These vis­i­tors are not just tourists; they have the po­ten­tial to be­come des­ti­na­tion am­bas­sadors for Trinidad, shar­ing their pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ences with their per­son­al and on­line net­works, which is vi­tal for build­ing our rep­u­ta­tion in­ter­na­tion­al­ly."

Buck­radee said Tourism Trinidad rai­son d’être is to en­hance the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence “at every touch­point”.

“From the mo­ment pas­sen­gers ar­rive, our fo­cus is on en­sur­ing they have a seam­less, en­joy­able, and mem­o­rable stay,” he ex­plained.  “We have been work­ing dili­gent­ly to show­case our unique cul­tur­al of­fer­ings, cap­ti­vat­ing sites and at­trac­tions, and un­par­al­leled hos­pi­tal­i­ty. It’s this com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence that helps turn first-time vis­i­tors in­to life­long ad­vo­cates for our des­ti­na­tion."

Fol­low­ing the of­fi­cial launch event last Fri­day, a dis­tin­guished del­e­ga­tion from Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed, the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the Port of Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion were in­vit­ed on­board the MS Nau­ti­ca for an ex­clu­sive ex­ec­u­tive tour.

The group ob­tained a first­hand glimpse in­to the ameni­ties and state-of-the-art fa­cil­i­ties of­fered by the MS Nau­ti­ca, show­cas­ing the ship's com­mit­ment to de­liv­er­ing a high-qual­i­ty ex­pe­ri­ence to the pas­sen­gers vis­it­ing Trinidad.

The high­light of cruise ship’s vis­it was the Tra­di­tion­al Crest Ex­change Cer­e­mo­ny—a re­spect­ed mar­itime tra­di­tion that serves as a sym­bol­ic ges­ture of good­will and part­ner­ship. Dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, the ship­mas­ter of MS Nau­ti­ca and lo­cal of­fi­cials ex­changed com­mem­o­ra­tive crests.

“This act not on­ly marks the ship's first vis­it to Trinidad,” Tourism Trinidad said, “but al­so sig­ni­fies the start of a fruit­ful and en­dur­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween the cruise line and Des­ti­na­tion Trinidad.”