The pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, Al­pha Lorde, says he is not over­ly con­cerned about the UK’s new visa re­quire­ment for Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als, as it will not af­fect the in­flux of UK trav­ellers to To­ba­go or in­ter­fere with the is­land’s tourism and ho­tel sec­tors.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, Lorde said he felt, “It’s more of a geopo­lit­i­cal is­sue,” adding that, “It doesn’t di­rect­ly im­pact our tourism prod­uct, be­cause that af­fects busi­ness out­bound. I think what’s more im­por­tant to me right now is the trav­el ad­vi­sories, not just is­sued in the UK, but just is­sued in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. But giv­en that for To­ba­go, a large por­tion of the would-be vis­i­tors come out of the UK, I would like to see the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs take that up as an is­sue.”

Lorde said hote­liers have al­ready seen a de­cline in book­ings, with some can­cel­la­tions di­rect­ly linked to the State of Emer­gency (SoE)—de­clared on De­cem­ber 30, 2024—and the in­creased trav­el ad­vi­sories against vis­it­ing To­ba­go. He warned that if the Gov­ern­ment does not ad­dress the is­sue with its UK coun­ter­parts, it could fur­ther hurt the is­land’s tourism sec­tor.

“The SoE and its ex­ten­sion just add fu­el to those trav­el ad­vi­sories. No­body’s pleased at all. We’ve seen sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tions in book­ings to date. Some have seen can­cel­la­tions, but more im­por­tant­ly, book­ings are not on par with pre­vi­ous years,” he said.

On the is­sue of the visa re­quire­ment, Lorde said the dis­cus­sion, among his mem­bers, has large­ly been about its im­pact on per­son­al trav­el rather than on busi­ness­es in the tourism in­dus­try.

“Most per­sons will be dis­cussing the visa re­stric­tions in the con­text of how it per­son­al­ly im­pacts them, not nec­es­sar­i­ly their busi­ness.”

Mean­while, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke lament­ed, in a so­cial me­dia video on Thurs­day, the UK’s de­ci­sion, call­ing it un­fair. He said the move is a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge that will re­quire a col­lec­tive na­tion­al ef­fort to ad­dress.

“Let’s not turn around and blame peo­ple. Let’s look for a so­lu­tion. It re­quires more than the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs to ne­go­ti­ate, more than the Prime Min­is­ter to ne­go­ti­ate. We the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go must say what we want,” he said.

Duke de­scribed the move to in­tro­duce visas for Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als as un­fair. He called on UK diplo­mats to lob­by on the coun­try’s be­half to have the de­ci­sion re­versed.