Hotels, Villas Booked Solid

THE SISTER-ISLE is all ready to welcome hundreds of visitors from Trinidad and other Caribbean countries, for the long Easter weekend which starts tomorrow.

Whether on school vacation or a hiatus from work, visitors this year are also being offered a packed entertainment package starting this Saturday with the second annual Caribbean Spring Bling at Pigeon Point, for which the line up is yet to be named while international reggae artiste Beenie Man accompanied by his band Ruff Cut, is scheduled to make his first ever appearance in Tobago at the Dwight Yorke Stadium.

The concerts prelude the annual Mt Pleasant sports day on Easter Monday and the 81st annual Buccoo Easter Goat Race Festival which takes place on Tuesday after Easter, which according to organisers, promises to be better than previous years. The tracks have already been prepared and the goats are said to be “fit, ready and able” for the big day.

The committee in collaboration with members of the Trinidad and Tobago Task Force have also reconstructed the old wooden structure that has housed the dignitaries to the event for the past five years. The building now include toilet facilities, kitchen, store room and a small museum which will showcase photos and artefacts from festivals gone by.

The second annual Plymouth Jazz Festival comes off the following weekend (April 21 to 23) and features a line up of top international and local artistes such as Toni Braxton, Patti LaBelle, Sting, P Diddy, Vanessa Williams, Barrington Levy, Machel Montano and Xtatik, Shurwayne Winchester and The Baron to name a few.

As a result of the influx of visitors, the majority of hotels on the island are already fully booked, particularly for the Jazz Festival and despite experiencing a drop in booking due to a UK travel advisory against the island earlier this year, villas and guest houses are also reportedly booked solid, with several actually having to turn away customers

for the first time in a long while.

Officials at Crown Point Beach Hotel told Newsday they also have guests booked to stay on for the annual Trinidad and Tobago International Game Fishing tournament which begins on April 25.

As usual, Trinidadians make up a large number of the visitors while there has been considerable interest in the Jazz Festival from Caribbean and foreign in-house guests, according to an official of the Trinidad and Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association,

Tobago Chapter.

CEO of CL Communications, Tony Maharaj told Newsday that ticket sales for the Festival are doing much better than last year but are going much faster in Trinidad than in Tobago where, as usual, persons tend to wait until the last minute.

Maharaj said that interest in the show has been an even mix from persons out of Europe, North America and the Caribbean region.

He said that their intentions are to encourage more tourists to Tobago during the Easter period and the Jazz cast was assisting remarkably.