Sto­ries by

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Car­olann Birch­wood-James, a promi­nent fig­ure in To­ba­go’s tourism in­dus­try, was ho­n­oured with the Hum­ming Bird Medal (gold) for her ex­cep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions to tourism ad­vo­ca­cy.

The for­mer pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion at­trib­ut­es her suc­cess to the ground­work laid by her late hus­band, Ash­ton James, whom she worked along­side in es­tab­lish­ing the Ca­noe Bay Beach Re­sort ho­tel more than three decades ago.

Birch­wood-James, 67, said she was over­whelmed with joy and grat­i­tude at be­ing recog­nised for her ef­forts in pro­mot­ing tourism.

“I ac­cept­ed that award with plen­ty op­ti­mism be­cause I still have faith in the in­dus­try,” she said.

She at­trib­uted her achieve­ments to her faith in God, the un­wa­ver­ing sup­port of her fam­i­ly, and the guid­ance of her late hus­band and moth­er. She al­so men­tioned the cru­cial role played by mem­bers of the Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion and the peo­ple of To­ba­go in her jour­ney to­wards this recog­ni­tion.

She cred­it­ed her late hus­band for in­tro­duc­ing her to the in­dus­try and said she is proud in con­tin­u­ing their joint jour­ney of tourism ad­vo­ca­cy.

As Birch­wood-James ac­cept­ed the award, she thought of her hus­band’s ab­sence and imag­ined him by her side, as they had em­barked on this jour­ney to­geth­er. His sud­den pass­ing due to a heart at­tack dur­ing the pan­dem­ic ul­ti­mate­ly in­spired her to work even hard­er to­wards their shared vi­sion of en­hanc­ing tourism in To­ba­go.

“When I ar­rived in Trinidad for the awards show, I told my­self, ‘If he was alive he would have been here with me. His suit would be hang up in the ho­tel room’. It’s two and a half years. I know he’s with me and as I ac­cept the award he’ll be right by my side,” she said.

Birch­wood-James said her work in tourism ad­vo­ca­cy start­ed 16 years ago as a mem­ber of the is­land’s tourism as­so­ci­a­tion. Since then, she has ded­i­cat­ed her­self to rais­ing aware­ness about the ben­e­fits and po­ten­tial of tourism in To­ba­go.

Her ad­vo­ca­cy ef­forts spanned var­i­ous plat­forms, in­clud­ing me­dia ap­pear­ances, in­ter­views, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in trade shows. Birch­wood-James was in­stru­men­tal in high­light­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of con­nec­tiv­i­ty, se­cur­ing air­line part­ner­ships, and ad­vo­cat­ing for in­crease in both do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al air­lift to To­ba­go.

An­oth­er ma­jor ac­com­plish­ment was the es­tab­lish­ment of the To­ba­go Tourism De­vel­op­ment Fund dur­ing her tenure as the as­so­ci­a­tion’s pres­i­dent.

Re­flect­ing on her jour­ney, Birch­wood-James said her be­lief is that the tourism in­dus­try is built on con­stant progress and in­no­va­tion.

“In­no­va­tion and hard work is what is go­ing to make the sit­u­a­tion bet­ter. We have a lot of work to do in To­ba­go. We would al­ways have a lot of work to do as far as tourism is con­cerned. That is the busi­ness we are in here in To­ba­go.”

She lament­ed the chal­lenges faced by To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor, in­clud­ing the need for ef­fec­tive mar­ket­ing strate­gies and im­proved con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

Birch­wood-James high­light­ed the im­por­tance of the in­dus­try for the is­land, em­pha­sis­ing that tourism pro­vides valu­able for­eign ex­change and pro­motes eco­nom­ic growth.

While grate­ful for the recog­ni­tion she has re­ceived, Birch­wood-James stressed that her re­ward for hard work is more hard work.

The moth­er of five and grand­moth­er of 12 still dreams about es­tab­lish­ing To­ba­go as a full-fledged tourism is­land, en­sur­ing a pros­per­ous fu­ture for gen­er­a­tions to come.

“My hope for the fu­ture of tourism is that as we progress we are go­ing to get it right, we are go­ing to get the right for­mu­la. That goes to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I hope we are go­ing to get the mar­ket­ing right, we are go­ing to get the con­nec­tiv­i­ty right. Peo­ple still can’t come to To­ba­go. We can have all the ho­tels that we want, all the mar­ket­ing, if we don’t have the con­nec­tiv­i­ty, tourism will not work.

“I need the peo­ple of To­ba­go to un­der­stand that tourism is good for us. We earn for­eign ex­change. Tourism is not slav­ery, it’s not servi­tude, it’s busi­ness.”