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Sunday, March 16, 2025

Tourism group says SoE not UK visa policy hurting travel to Tobago

by

Elizabeth Gonzales
Yesterday
20250315
 Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association president, Alpha Lorde.

Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association president, Alpha Lorde.

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.


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