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Tourists from Canada disembark the First Try glass-bottom boat after a tour of the Buccoo Reef on December 27, 2022. - File photoTOBAGO Hotel and Tourism Association (THTA) president Reginald Mac Clean claims international tourist arrivals to the island have dropped by 70 per cent.
He was delivering remarks at the launch of Unicomer Ltd’s Courts Business Solutions showroom at Gulf City Mall, Lowlands, Tobago, on August 8.
Lamenting the downward trend in foreign arrivals, Mac Clean said serious strategies must be devised to get Tobago’s tourism sector back in track.
He said the association is willing to lead the charge with help from the government, THA, business chambers and other stakeholders to reverse the trend.
Mac Clean said when the THTA’s members held their annual general meeting in April, they decided the association will be proactive in its approach moving forward.
“We are not going to react to things,” he said. “We want to make things happen as we go along and get Tobago back to what it used to be when we had 90,000-plus international arrivals into Tobago in the late 80s, early 90s and the early 2,000s. Not what we have today, last year being 24,500 international passengers, a drop of 70 per cent.
“With us being proactive, we are going to do things to get Tobago back on the map. Tobago has to grow and has to develop for all of us to enjoy.”
Mac Clean, general manager of Blue Waters Inn, Speyside, said economic diversification is one of the main avenues through which Tobago’s tourist sector can thrive again.
But he feels the sector has been “put on the shelf for too long not just in Tobago but also in Trinidad.
“It’s a two-pronged sword. Right now, we are suffering for a lack of foreign exchange. What is the easiest thing to bring foreign exchange to an economy – tourism?
“We have a plant here in Tobago and it is very easy to invest some money into that, get the government involved in it by way of partnering with the association and giving us the necessary help to market the country and also to get the plant up and running to what it used to be.”
But Mac Clean said accommodation must be of an exceptionally high standard.
“We could have 3,000 hotel rooms, guesthouses, bed and breakfasts, villas. But at the end of the day, if those rooms are not up to international quality and standard, we are not going to be selling anything.”
He recalled the island suffered a devastating blow during the covid19 pandemic.
“So now, it’s our chance to start from scratch and rebuild what we have here.”
Mac Clean said since the installation of the new executive, the association has met with Planning Minister Kennedy Swaratsingh, Chief Secretary Farley Augustine, Finance Secretary Petal-Ann Roberts, Tourism Secretary Tashia Burris and other stakeholders to discuss their expectations for the upcoming budget.
“We are very hopeful that if diversification is the way we have to go, then that is one of the things that has to be put into the budget of the country. We have been preaching this for the last three and a half months or thereabouts.”
To this end, he hailed the association’s inaugural tourism forum on July 24 as a major step in rebuilding the sector.
“Everyone in this room knows that we have declining energy in Trinidad and Tobago and we lost a lot of what we had. But tourism is the easiest way for us to get back to that point and make the investments that we have to make.
“But it takes all of Tobago to get involved to make tourism work. We, in Tobago, have to decide if it is something we want. And that is a key thing. If we don’t want tourism, then we have to say that.”
Mac Clean said tourism and agriculture have the potential to be major income-earners for the island.
On agriculture, he said, “I have been meeting with a lot of the farmers in Goldsborough, Kings Bay, because one of the ideas is to get the farmers to produce the stuff Tobago needs to sustain.
“We also want to be able to tell a guest, whether it’s one from Tobago, Trinidad or internationally, that we are doing things where our menus are farm to table. It’s the freshest way to do things. That now starts to build the agricultural side of the economy.”
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