Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, Ran­dall Mitchell is en­cour­ag­ing small ho­tels to con­stant­ly up­grade in or­der to im­prove their tourism prod­uct.

He said this will al­low T&T to broad­en its glob­al reach and im­prove the qual­i­ty of room stock and oth­er ser­vices pro­vid­ed in the tourism sec­tor.

He made the call yes­ter­day as six busi­ness­es signed cer­e­mo­ni­al con­tracts with Tourism Trinidad Lim­it­ed (TTL) to re­ceive re­im­burse­ments for up­grade works done to their build­ings.

The ini­tia­tive is part of the min­istry’s Trinidad and To­ba­go Tourism Ac­com­mo­da­tion Up­grade Project (TAUP), which pro­vides com­pen­sa­tion for small ho­tel or­gan­i­sa­tions to ren­o­vate and en­hance fa­cil­i­ties.

Speak­ing dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny a tthe Brix Au­to­graph Col­lec­tion in Port-of-Spain, Mitchell said, “We un­der­stand the val­ue of tourism, but in par­tic­u­lar, the val­ue of the ac­com­mo­da­tion seg­ment of tourism to the econ­o­my of Trinidad and To­ba­go. TAUP is a very help­ful pro­gramme cater­ing to small prop­er­ties, one to six-room prop­er­ties, with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and six-room to 150-room prop­er­ties, where the ho­tel own­ers, and ho­tel in­vestors, are al­lowed and en­cour­aged to go ahead and up­grade their prop­er­ties to an in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard, to en­sure that guests to Trinidad and To­ba­go, guests to our ac­com­mo­da­tion prop­er­ties, guests to our tourism sec­tor, en­joy a very high qual­i­ty stay, a high-qual­i­ty tourism ex­pe­ri­ence.”

He called on small ho­tel own­ers to de­vel­op and im­prove their prop­er­ties in or­der to ac­cess up to 40% re­im­burse­ment, up to a lim­it of $150,000, and medi­um to large prop­er­ties up to 50% of their in­vest­ment, up to a lim­it of $1.5 mil­lion.

He said the min­istry has spent around $26 mil­lion to fa­cil­i­tate works and re­im­burse­ments in Trinidad over the past few years, and in $9.3 mil­lion was in­vest­ed in im­prov­ing room stock in To­ba­go, with $4.5 mil­lion be­ing re­im­bursed by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

He said this is a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for the fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty of the coun­try and in­vit­ed busi­ness­es to join the ini­tia­tive.

“We are al­so con­cerned with the cre­ation of jobs and the stim­u­la­tion of our econ­o­my. We need to get the econ­o­my stim­u­lat­ed and we need to get the econ­o­my go­ing again, so it is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant to en­sure that all the tourism stake­hold­ers across Trinidad and To­ba­go know that we have these pro­grammes avail­able, and know that the Gov­ern­ment is in­ter­est­ed in part­ner­ing and in in­cen­tivis­ing and al­so in­vest­ing in your own ho­tel stock be­cause we are in­ter­est­ed in stim­u­lat­ing the over­all econ­o­my,” Mitchell added.

Cara Ho­tels gen­er­al man­ag­er Has­sle Thom thanked TLL for their sup­port dur­ing dif­fi­cult times but al­so urged them to in­clude more small and medi­um busi­ness­es in the project.

“Com­ing out of COVID, it was even more sig­nif­i­cant in giv­ing us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to up­grade some room stocks that we have not been able to do for quite a long time, know­ing for the last two and a half years that the in­dus­try had suf­fered tremen­dous­ly. It is pleas­ing that the Gov­ern­ment, through the Min­istry of Tourism and di­rect­ed through the TTL, con­tin­ue to see the need for this pro­gramme. So, I am go­ing to chal­lenge TTL to get more stake­hold­ers in be­cause for more small­er and medi­um en­ter­pris­es, or for small­er ho­tels to ben­e­fit, we all need the sup­port of the bank­ing sec­tor. I ask on­ly for the im­por­tance of the con­tin­ued in­vest­ment, the con­sis­tent in­vest­ment in­to the in­dus­try, so that those per­sons who I see around the room who have con­tin­ued to in­vest in tourism be­cause the reach goes so far, the mul­ti­ply ef­fect is so much that we miss it if we don’t open our eyes,” Thom said.

Along with Cara Ho­tels, the oth­er re­cip­i­ents in­clud­ed:

Hol­i­day Inn Ex­press and Suites, Trinci­ty

Par-May-La’s Inn

Roy­al Ho­tel

Sun­deck Suites

Tradewinds Ho­tel