Cit­i­zens of this coun­try, who wish to trav­el with­in the CARI­COM “Trav­el Bub­ble” would not be sub­ject­ed to tests for the virus, nor would they have to quar­an­tine.

These are just some of the fea­ture of the bub­ble as re­vealed by the Bar­ba­dos Am­bas­sador to CARI­COM David Comis­siong, who said the pro­gramme would be bol­stered once Trinidad and To­ba­go can par­tic­i­pate.

On Sat­ur­day Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said once the down­ward trend in COVID cas­es con­tin­ues lo­cal­ly, this coun­try can join the bub­ble.

The “Trav­el Bub­ble” ini­tia­tive was launched on Sep­tem­ber 18 with eight mem­ber states hav­ing al­ready qual­i­fied to be a part of it, four of whom have al­ready signed on.

Ac­cord­ing to Bar­ba­dos’ Am­bas­sador to CARI­COM, David Comis­siong, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the ini­tia­tive would once again give life to tourism and re­lat­ed in­dus­tries re­gion­al­ly- an ef­fort in which “a coun­try like Trinidad and To­ba­go is very im­por­tant.”

“The truth is, we will not see the full po­ten­tial and im­pact of the bub­ble if we are un­able to bring some of the larg­er CARI­COM ter­ri­to­ries in­to the bub­ble,” he said.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is the ma­jor econ­o­my of CARI­COM. Trinidad and To­ba­go is im­por­tant to al­most every­thing in CARI­COM.”

He ex­plained that T&T con­tributes the largest mar­ket in terms of the in­tra-re­gion­al tourism prod­uct.

“There was a time when Bar­ba­dos used to re­ceive 30,000 tourists (and) vis­i­tors from Trinidad and To­ba­go per year. Trinidad and To­ba­go, at that time...in terms of our tourism mar­ket, it was num­ber four af­ter Britain, Cana­da and the Unit­ed States,” he said.

In re­cent years, he not­ed, the con­tri­bu­tion has de­creased but “it still is a very im­por­tant tourism and trav­el mar­ket.”

Comis­siong ex­plained that to qual­i­fy to be part of the bub­ble, mem­ber states need to be deemed as hav­ing low to no risk of trans­mit­ting the COVID-19 virus un­der the Eu­ro­pean Cen­tre for Dis­ease Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol.

Comis­siong said, “I think we are all hop­ing and wish­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go does get its num­bers down as quick­ly as pos­si­ble in the in­ter­est of Trinidad and To­ba­go but al­so in the in­ter­est of the en­tire Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty.”

“We have to re­build this CARI­COM econ­o­my. We’ve all suf­fered a ter­ri­ble blow and Trinidad and To­ba­go would be crit­i­cal to any re­build­ing process.”

Al­ready qual­i­fied to be a part of the bub­ble are St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Do­mini­ca, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Grena­da, Montser­rat, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lu­cia and Bar­ba­dos. How­ev­er, on­ly St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Do­mini­ca, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, and Bar­ba­dos have be­gun par­tic­i­pat­ing in the ini­tia­tive so far.

One of the defin­ing fea­tures of the ini­tia­tive is that peo­ple en­ti­tled to par­tic­i­pate in the trav­el bub­ble are not re­quired to take COVID-19 tests nor would they un­der­go a pe­ri­od of quar­an­tine in or­der to trav­el to coun­tries that are with­in it.

“Once you trav­el to the coun­try, you ad­here to the na­tion­al pro­to­col in terms of so­cial dis­tanc­ing, wear­ing masks hand wash­ing and so forth. We feel con­fi­dent that we don’t need to put you through test­ing or quar­an­tine be­cause your coun­try is just as safe as ours,” he said.