TT’s buoyant economy good for tourism

Using statistical charts to explain the economic structure of travelling tourism in Trinidad and Tobago using the Tourism Satellite Accounting (TSA) system, he said TT now an opportunity to see how it stands against other countries.

The TSA system was developed to put travelling tourism on par with all of the other industries that are normally quantified on a regular basis whether its agriculture. electronics, the financial services or the energy industry.

"We now have the ability to compare ourselves to those other industries so government officials can make informed and intelligent policy decisions. And having the ability to compare with countries of the region we now have the opportunity to know where the challenges are with not just visitor arrivals," he said.

Miller gave a his perspective of travel tourism, stating that it is the economic contact that the national government looks at to make policy decisions.

This tool will give TT the history of what has transpired over the last 10-15 years and a forecast produced through Oxford Economics and Forecasting (OEF) and TIDCO.

The first component of the TSA is personal travelling tourism which is the spending by residents of TT. It represent 8.2% of the total personal consumption.

From 174 countries, TT is the 97th largest spender on personal travelling tourism. The normal spending in this area in the world is around 10-12%.

He presented the business travel category, which is the spending by government agencies in TT and local business corporations. Of the $1.1b, the biggest chunk is from corporate travel with only 20% government travel.

This, he said, reflects how robust the travel economy is. TT is the 98th largest spender of business travel in the world.

The third case of the travelling tourism is government expenditure (air-traffic control, airport services etc.). This represents little over 5% of total government spending and ranks 92 in the world.

Miller went into was travelling tourism capital investment by the private sector. The estimate for 2005 is $1.8b representing 12..6% of the total capital investment in TT.

This category is very volatile he said, depending on unforeseen circumstances but the growth rate is very strong.

In exports, the category which tourism ministers focus on Miller said, $3.3b is the forecast for 2005, representing 5.5% of total exports from the economy with 7.2% growth and a ranking of 36 out of 174 countries. This export category is forecasted to reach 10% of total export.

The overall growth on the subject is 4-5 % a year which has been very solid on a regular basis.

Under the consumer services category - the buying travelling tourism economy that caters to the visitors - represents 4.8 % of the total GDP or $4.2b for 2005. Real forecast growth is 5.4% and ranking is 41.