Tobago tourism sector sees relief as transport disruptions ease

Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­[email protected]

To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor is be­gin­ning to re­cov­er from re­cent trans­port dis­rup­tions, ac­cord­ing to Rene Seep­er­sads­ingh, first vice pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion.

In an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Seep­er­sads­ingh said ini­tial short­ages caused by an ac­ci­dent af­fect­ing thhe MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny have large­ly im­proved.

“We have found some al­ter­na­tive routes. Sup­plies have in­creased in To­ba­go. We don’t al­ready have too many chal­lenges with food and bev­er­age,” he said, not­ing that heav­ier goods such as hard­ware re­main the most af­fect­ed.

The is­land’s in­ter-is­land trans­porta­tion has been un­der strain since last week, when Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine urged To­bag­o­ni­ans for “pa­tience” and “grace” while the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and Min­istry of Works worked to re­solve the cri­sis. The MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny, the new car­go ves­sel in­tend­ed to re­place the Cabo Star, sus­tained hull dam­age while at­tempt­ing to berth at the Port of Scar­bor­ough last week.

On Feb­ru­ary 1, the T&T Spir­it al­so en­coun­tered sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems and was with­drawn from ser­vice.

On Fri­day, Au­gus­tine con­firmed that a barge had been se­cured to trans­port car­go to To­ba­go as an in­ter­im mea­sure while re­pairs on the Blue Wave Har­mo­ny con­tin­ue.

Seep­er­sads­ingh ex­plained that ves­sels like the APT James and the Galleons Pas­sage have lim­it­ed ca­pac­i­ty, han­dling main­ly small­er vans and trucks rather than large ship­ments of ce­ment or steel. He re­as­sured vis­i­tors that food and bev­er­age sup­plies are sta­ble, adding that tourists should not face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges over the Car­ni­val week­end.

De­spite the eas­ing of sup­ply is­sues, Seep­er­sads­ingh high­light­ed on­go­ing struc­tur­al prob­lems with in­ter-is­land trav­el.

“The is­sue with the air­bridge and the seabridge has been on­go­ing for decades. This is not a new sce­nario. We need more long-term plan­ning,” he said, cit­ing de­lays in flight sched­ules, dif­fi­cul­ties with can­cel­la­tions and re­book­ing, and lim­it­ed ves­sel avail­abil­i­ty dur­ing peak pe­ri­ods.

He al­so stressed the need for re­li­able ser­vice, not­ing that a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of trav­el be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go is con­duct­ed by res­i­dents and busi­ness trav­ellers, not just tourists.

“We need to look at the re­al­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion and have a re­li­able and con­sis­tent ser­vice be­tween both des­ti­na­tions,” Seep­er­sads­ingh said.

Wel­com­ing re­cent de­vel­op­ments from the Port Au­thor­i­ty, in­clud­ing the re­turn to ser­vice of the Buc­coo Reef fer­ry, he said re­cur­ring trans­port dis­rup­tions con­tin­ue to af­fect plan­ning for tourism, med­ical ap­point­ments, and busi­ness trav­el.

Seep­er­sads­ingh urged greater at­ten­tion to the air and sea bridges, call­ing them life­lines for To­ba­go. He ex­pressed the as­so­ci­a­tion’s will­ing­ness, along with the Cham­ber of Com­merce, to col­lab­o­rate with the gov­ern­ment and oth­er stake­hold­ers on a sus­tain­able, long-term plan.

“Bil­lions of dol­lars are spent on in­fra­struc­ture in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the air­bridge and seabridge for us is in­fra­struc­ture. We need that type of at­ten­tion paid,” he said.