Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les 

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent 

The re­cent State of Emer­gency (SoE) de­c­la­ra­tion has caused some can­cel­la­tions in To­ba­go’s ho­tel sec­tor, ac­cord­ing to Kaye Trot­man, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Unique Bed, Break­fast, and Self-Cater­ing As­so­ci­a­tion.

Trot­man shared with Guardian Me­dia that while not all busi­ness­es were af­fect­ed, one re­sort re­port­ed that vis­i­tors left ear­ly af­ter the SoE was an­nounced, wor­ried about the im­pli­ca­tions and be­ing un­able to get back to the US in time for work.

She said luck­i­ly, there were no re­ports of can­cel­la­tions for her mem­bers for Car­ni­val and East­er book­ings.

She said, “We can­not es­cape the fall­out from the econ­o­my be­ing im­pact­ed neg­a­tive­ly. From our as­so­ci­a­tion, it is not wide­spread, but we did have some be­ing im­pact­ed. And I would even think that one per­son re­port­ed it, from our mem­ber­ship. I would sus­pect that from those who may not have an­swered me as yet, that they are be­ing af­fect­ed in some de­gree from the fall­out. Even though it is not the ma­jor­i­ty.”

This comes af­ter Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine men­tioned that he had re­ceived mes­sages from some busi­ness­es about reser­va­tion can­cel­la­tions over the un­cer­tain­ty the SoE brought.

He told the me­dia, “I am get­ting mes­sages that some folks are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing can­cel­la­tions due to the SoE and the air of un­cer­tain­ty it cre­ates.”

How­ev­er, not every­one in the tourism sec­tor has seen the same im­pact. Al­pha Lorde, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, told Guardian Me­dia that he had not re­ceived re­ports of any can­cel­la­tions up to New Year’s Eve, but would con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly.

On Tues­day, the To­ba­go Tourism Agency Lim­it­ed put out a re­lease re­mind­ing trav­ellers that To­ba­go was open for busi­ness and the SoE would not af­fect the is­land’s tourism prod­uct.