Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go busi­ness­es are wor­ried about ex­treme­ly low sales as the Christ­mas sea­son reach­es its peak.

Of­fi­cials of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, are hop­ing for a last-minute rush for goods and ser­vices from this Wednes­day. How­ev­er, De­mi Cruick­shank chair­man of the In­ter­is­land Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee said the pur­chas­ing habits of To­bag­o­ni­ans have not budged for the sea­son.

“We have been mon­i­tor­ing the sales for the last week, but sales have been ex­treme­ly slow, so we spoke to a cou­ple of busi­ness own­ers, es­pe­cial­ly in the Scar­bor­ough area, and they in­di­cat­ed that busi­ness­es have been ex­treme­ly slow,” he said.

Cruick­shank said there is no hype for Christ­mas in To­ba­go yet and un­til it builds up, the cham­ber is work­ing out an arrange­ment with the Port Au­thor­i­ty for ad­di­tion­al sail­ings to make up for the dis­rup­tions caused by the ac­tive 2023-2024 cruise ship sea­son.

“We are hop­ing to get a rush from Wednes­day un­to Christ­mas even for Christ­mas sales in To­ba­go,” he said.

Cruick­shank said To­ba­go’s busi­ness­es have not ful­ly re­cov­ered from the $5 mil­lion in loss­es they suf­fered in Sep­tem­ber fol­low­ing a ma­jor dis­rup­tion in the car­go fer­ry ser­vice.

This is why he is now en­cour­ag­ing res­i­dents to shop in To­ba­go for Christ­mas.