GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

In 2019, San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al with­drew from To­ba­go af­ter con­tro­ver­sy over the project on the is­land. Now the in­ter­na­tion­al ho­tel brand is set to re­turn as fresh ne­go­ti­a­tions are ex­pect­ed to be­gin next month when San­dals ex­ec­u­tives ar­rive in T&T.

This was an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who made the com­ments at yes­ter­day’s com­mis­sion­ing of To­ba­go’s new ter­mi­nal of the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

The move has been wel­comed by econ­o­mists Dr Ronald Ramkissoon, Dr Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon, and po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James.

Ramkissoon said if talks with San­dals re­sult in con­crete plans, it will bring T&T on an in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ing in the glob­al ho­tel sec­tor.

“If the right agree­ments are reached, these can serve as spring­boards for the de­vel­op­ment of To­ba­go,” he said.

How­ev­er, Ramkissoon said it was im­por­tant for the coun­try to know ex­act­ly where its in­ter­ests lie and that ne­go­ti­a­tions are done in good faith.

“We need to pay at­ten­tion to is­sues like the en­vi­ron­ment, which is very crit­i­cal to the is­land econ­o­my, and we need to en­sure that as far as pos­si­ble we do in fact get the kinds of rev­enues that are go­ing to off­set the costs that usu­al­ly arise in re­spect of any form of for­eign in­vest­ment. It is im­por­tant the pos­i­tives off­set the cost,” Ramkissoon ex­plained.

Ar­joon al­so agreed that any de­ci­sion by San­dals to in­vest in build­ing a ho­tel in To­ba­go will present sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic ad­van­tages for the econ­o­my, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of the re­cent open­ing of a new air­port.

He not­ed this will stim­u­late job cre­ation, both di­rect­ly through ho­tel op­er­a­tions and in­di­rect­ly via the sup­ply chain and an­cil­lary ser­vices such as trans­porta­tion, food pro­duc­tion, and re­tail.

For in­stance, Ar­joon fur­ther ex­plained that lo­cal farm­ers and food pro­cess­ing sec­tors will be able to cap­i­talise on the in­creased de­mand gen­er­at­ed by the ho­tel’s op­er­a­tions, cre­at­ing a sta­ble and lu­cra­tive mar­ket for these busi­ness­es.

He added this will not on­ly pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties to the lo­cal agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor but al­so en­cour­age val­ue-added ac­tiv­i­ties in food pro­cess­ing—they should al­so for­mu­late an agree­ment that a min­i­mum per­cent­age of food items at the ho­tel should be sourced lo­cal­ly, pro­vid­ing a guar­an­teed mar­ket for farm­ers and fos­ter­ing sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth.

Ar­joon said this was es­pe­cial­ly crit­i­cal for To­ba­go, where eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties are less di­verse.

“The in­flux of em­ploy­ment can in­crease house­hold in­comes in To­ba­go and im­prove liv­ing stan­dards, fos­ter­ing a more ro­bust lo­cal econ­o­my. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the ho­tel’s pres­ence will like­ly at­tract oth­er busi­ness­es, such as restau­rants, tour op­er­a­tors, and craft ven­dors, cre­at­ing a mul­ti­pli­er ef­fect that am­pli­fies eco­nom­ic growth across the re­gion,” Ar­joon said.

He said the new air­port en­hances To­ba­go’s ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, mak­ing it a more at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tion for in­ter­na­tion­al tourists. San­dals’ rep­u­ta­tion as a lux­u­ry brand can po­si­tion To­ba­go as a pre­mi­um tourist des­ti­na­tion, draw­ing high­er-spend­ing vis­i­tors and in­creas­ing for­eign ex­change earn­ings.

Ar­joon said the tourism rev­enue can be rein­vest­ed in­to lo­cal in­fra­struc­ture, ed­u­ca­tion, and health­care, fur­ther dri­ving long-term de­vel­op­ment in To­ba­go.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he not­ed the ho­tel’s op­er­a­tions can spur skills de­vel­op­ment and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing among the lo­cal work­force, lever­ag­ing To­ba­go’s ho­tel school to en­hance train­ing and ex­per­tise in hos­pi­tal­i­ty and ser­vice in­dus­tries, stat­ing that over­all, San­dals’ in­vest­ment aligns with T&T’s strate­gic goal of di­ver­si­fy­ing the econ­o­my, cre­at­ing a more sus­tain­able and re­silient eco­nom­ic fu­ture.

James, who al­so wel­comed the move, said this must be done with agree­ment with the “peo­ple of To­ba­go” and “not forced on them.”

“If To­ba­go wants it, let’s go with it, but he (Row­ley) can’t force him­self on To­ba­go. It is al­ways sub­ject to what the peo­ple want. Al­ways it has to be what the peo­ple want,” James added.