Military activity sparks tourism alarm

Un­usu­al ac­tiv­i­ty at ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port has sparked fresh con­cerns for To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor, with the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA) warn­ing of po­ten­tial fi­nan­cial fall­out as the is­land ap­proach­es the Christ­mas sea­son.

As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean told Guardian Me­dia that ho­tel op­er­a­tors are fac­ing a dif­fi­cult and un­cer­tain pe­ri­od as vis­i­tors raise ques­tions about the re­cent US mil­i­tary land­ing in To­ba­go, the in­stal­la­tion of a new radar sys­tem at Crown Point, and US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s de­c­la­ra­tion that Venezue­lan air­space should be con­sid­ered “closed in its en­tire­ty.”

MacLean said the as­so­ci­a­tion is es­sen­tial­ly brac­ing for im­pact, not­ing that noth­ing about the sit­u­a­tion is with­in To­ba­go’s con­trol. “It is all out of our con­trol. We can make sug­ges­tions, but noth­ing will ma­te­ri­alise,” he said.

Book­ings at MacLean’s own prop­er­ty were al­ready slip­ping be­fore the lat­est de­vel­op­ments. “Al­most two and a half, three months ago, we were 76 per cent booked go­ing in­to the Christ­mas and New Year pe­ri­od,” he said. “Three weeks ago, that dropped to 42 per cent be­cause of what’s hap­pen­ing in Venezuela. We had just start­ed creep­ing back up to 58 per cent.”

He warned that the new un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing re­gion­al ten­sions and ac­tiv­i­ty at the To­ba­go air­port is like­ly to push those num­bers down again.

“We are prob­a­bly more than like­ly go­ing to see a wave of can­cel­la­tions com­ing,” he said.

MacLean said he has al­ready been con­tact­ed by Trinidad-based trav­ellers re­con­sid­er­ing trips to To­ba­go due to fears that the is­land could be af­fect­ed if the air­space above Venezuela or the sur­round­ing re­gion is dis­rupt­ed. “Peo­ple trav­el­ling from Trinidad are now study­ing whether to change their plans and not come to To­ba­go, be­cause they may get stuck if the air­space is com­pro­mised,” he said.

He added that the sit­u­a­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling be­cause To­ba­go ap­pears caught in the mid­dle of a wider geopo­lit­i­cal dis­pute.

“It has to do with Venezuela and the US, and we are stuck in the mid­dle. We are fur­ther stuck with it, and at the end of the day, To­ba­go has be­come a tar­get in the Crown Point area,” he said.

MacLean warned that po­ten­tial loss­es for ho­tels and guest­hous­es could be sig­nif­i­cant, es­pe­cial­ly as the is­land pre­pares for its peak hol­i­day pe­ri­od. He be­lieves the Unit­ed States should as­sist in cov­er­ing any fi­nan­cial fall­out linked to its op­er­a­tions in the re­gion.

“I sure­ly do hope that there’s go­ing to be some rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed pay­ments com­ing back for the loss­es to Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause of this ac­tion. There’s go­ing to be a lot of fi­nan­cial fall­out from it,” he said.

He al­so crit­i­cised the ex­clu­sion of To­ba­go from the coun­try’s top na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty dis­cus­sions.

“There’s no seat on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil for the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. I find that very dis­turb­ing,” he said. “The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly needs rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. That is the on­ly thing we are go­ing to ac­cept mov­ing for­ward.”

With radar ac­tiv­i­ty at Crown Point and es­ca­lat­ing geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions, MacLean warned that To­ba­go could be head­ing in­to a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive dif­fi­cult sea­son, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter the last busy pe­ri­od end­ed un­der a state of emer­gency and sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el ad­vi­sories.