The To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA) has writ­ten to Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, and oth­er gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, rais­ing the alarm over four ur­gent is­sues af­fect­ing the is­land’s tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor.

In a state­ment to the me­dia yes­ter­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion high­light­ed the need for the “re-fi­nanc­ing and re­struc­tur­ing of the To­ba­go Tourism Agency Lim­it­ed,” in­clud­ing in­creased air­lift fund­ing, en­hanced pro­mo­tion­al sup­port, and ap­pro­pri­ate in­dus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals Com­mis­sion.

TH­TA al­so called for the re­peal of the For­eign In­vest­ment Act and the To­ba­go Land Ac­qui­si­tion Or­der of 2007, along with a re­view of for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment con­di­tions with­in the sec­tor.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the as­so­ci­a­tion is de­mand­ing ac­cess to “3 per­cent of the 10 per­cent room tax paid by ho­tels” to be al­lo­cat­ed to des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing, “as pre­vi­ous­ly ap­proved.”

It is al­so ad­vo­cat­ing for the de­vel­op­ment of an air­lift growth plan, aligned with the open­ing of the is­land’s new air­port ter­mi­nal.

With the Gen­er­al Elec­tion ap­proach­ing, the as­so­ci­a­tion not­ed:

“Very lit­tle has been said about the sec­tor dur­ing the cam­paign. Cit­i­zens are ea­ger to hear how each par­ty plans to sup­port tourism mov­ing for­ward. We stand ready to en­gage with all stake­hold­ers and in­vite their col­lab­o­ra­tion on these press­ing mat­ters.”