Summer blues for sister isle

Tobago is currently experiencing a slump in the tourism industry, with visitor arrivals last month dropping by 36 percent when compared with the same period last year.

While a total of 7,100 persons visited Tobago during May 2005, only 4,500 visitors did so last month, according to Secretary of Tourism/Transportation/Enterprise Development/Settlements, Neil Wilson. He said the fall-off in visitor arrivals over the past three months manifested itself in an even sharper decline during the last month.

“That has been, in my view, due to crime to a certain extent, but even more importantly the question of the World Cup in Germany,” Wilson told journalists at Thursday’s regular post-Executive Council meeting press briefing.

“The World Cup has encouraged people to travel to Europe rather than to come to the Caribbean and therefore we anticipated that there would have been a fall-off, and that has manifested itself in the last month or so in a very significant way,” he explained.

The Tourism Secretary added this trend is expected to continue beyond June and perhaps into the rest of the summer tourist season, in light of pronouncements of a “very active” hurricane season in the region this year.

“And once that kicks in, if that is so, then you know it would have a negative effect on the whole Caribbean area and we will not be spared!”

Against the background of the expected declining visitor arrivals, the THA is now moving to mount an aggressive promotion thrust on the local travel market, seeking to encourage more Trinidadians to come to Tobago. An initiative in this regard is soon to be launched in Trinidad, Wilson revealed.

“We need to look at the local market as an alternative to the international market,” he asserted.