Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go stake­hold­ers and the Gov­ern­ment have unan­i­mous­ly agreed to in­vite San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al to re­con­sid­er in­vest­ing in the is­land, mark­ing what could be a sec­ond chance to bring the world-renowned ho­tel chain to the is­land.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lowed a high-lev­el meet­ing be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, of­fi­cials from the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), tourism stake­hold­ers, and the San­dals ex­ec­u­tive team, led by CEO Adam Stew­art, at the Prime Min­is­ter’s res­i­dence in Blenheim yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence af­ter­wards, Young de­scribed the talks as a ses­sion where it was agreed to put San­dals on a “clean slate,” say­ing the re­newed dis­cus­sions were fo­cused on To­ba­go’s growth and its po­si­tion­ing as a com­pet­i­tive glob­al tourism des­ti­na­tion.

Young re­vealed that San­dals is now will­ing to use its own funds for the in­vest­ment.

“He (Stew­art) is pre­pared from an in­vest­ment point of view be­fore all of us gath­ered here to­day that their usu­al mod­el is one where he is pre­pared to in­vest in the plant in the ho­tel it­self,” Young said.

This com­mit­ment to self-fund­ing could ease some of the past con­cerns that sur­round­ed the ini­tial deal, which in­clud­ed ques­tions about trans­paren­cy and pub­lic in­vest­ment.

While no time­line has been set for a fi­nal de­ci­sion, Young con­firmed that both par­ties have agreed to a step-by-step en­gage­ment process.

He em­pha­sised that this process would be con­duct­ed with full trans­paren­cy and con­sul­ta­tion at every stage.

“I am hop­ing in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture, the San­dals Group will take a pos­i­tive de­ci­sion not on­ly to look at To­ba­go but to in­di­cate to us that they are pre­pared to brand To­ba­go as part of their des­ti­na­tion pack­ages and to in­vest in To­ba­go a San­dals ho­tel,” Young added.

San­dals’ pre­vi­ous pro­pos­al to es­tab­lish a re­sort in To­ba­go fell through sev­er­al years ago. How­ev­er, this re­newed in­ter­est sig­nals a po­ten­tial re­vival of a ma­jor tourism de­vel­op­ment that could trans­form the is­land’s hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor.

The Prime Min­is­ter said it was heart­en­ing to see full sup­port from To­ba­go’s key tourism play­ers and THA of­fi­cials. He said he be­lieves the mo­men­tum and uni­fied stance this time around could help the long-dis­cussed project fi­nal­ly come to fruition.

He said he had his fin­gers crossed that San­dals will give the coun­try a “yes.”

Mean­while, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said he was sat­is­fied with what was pre­sent­ed dur­ing the meet­ing with San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al and is look­ing for­ward to see­ing a for­mal pro­pos­al for To­ba­go.

Au­gus­tine told the me­dia that once San­dals agrees to con­sid­er in­vest­ing in To­ba­go, it will present a new pro­pos­al. That clar­i­ty, he said, gives him con­fi­dence as both sides move to­wards re-en­gag­ing on brand-new terms.

On Sat­ur­day, dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, Au­gus­tine de­mand­ed that the re­sort come with its own mon­ey if it was se­ri­ous about the in­vest­ment.

He dou­bled down on that state­ment yes­ter­day say­ing, “When I made that state­ment I was go­ing based on what was and what the pro­pos­al was the last time. Now that it is abun­dant­ly clear that we are not work­ing on the old pro­pos­al and we are start­ing from new, then I will pre­fer to get a pro­pos­al from San­dals first be­fore mak­ing any pro­nounce­ment on what can and can­not be.”

Au­gus­tine, Ho­tel As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­pha Lord, Tourism Sec­re­tary Tashia Bur­ris, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke and To­ba­go Cham­ber of Com­merce chair­man Cur­tis Williams said they wel­comed the ho­tel to ap­proach the is­land with a fresh pro­pos­al that will work for all stake­hold­ers and peo­ple on the is­land.

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader An­cil Den­nis said he was hap­py to see To­ba­go lead­ers come to­geth­er to agree on a project that would ben­e­fit the is­land.

All Guardian Me­dia spoke to said they an­tic­i­pat­ed fur­ther dis­cus­sion with the ho­tel chain af­ter the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.