US ten million dollars is needed to market Tobago. This from President of the Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association Reginald Mac Lean during an interview with TV6'S Elizabeth Williams on his budget wishes.
He also wishes to see the completion of the construction of the new terminal at the ANR Robinson International Airport and upgrades to Tobago's room stock. More in this report.
00:00We have not been able to market Tobago effectively, so realistically we need, for marketing purposes only, I'm not talking about running of detail, about 10 million U.S. dollars to do destination marketing for the island.
00:16You go outside and every island in the Caribbean is seen all over the world. Tobago is non-existent.
00:24President of the Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association, Reginald McLean, as he spoke with TV6 News in Scarborough.
00:33Mr. McLean is also hopeful flights on the airbridge can return to pre-COVID rotations.
00:39Everybody is suffering on the island. When you see that we are down from a high, I think, of 96,000 international tourists, where we only have 24,500 last year, that's a big drop.
00:49That's a 75% drop over the last 10, 15, whatever years.
00:54So we need to build this back up, and it takes investing in the infrastructure, whether it be a plane or whatever,
01:02or it gets Caribbean Airlines to give us back the flights that we had before, including late-night flights to catch the connections out of Trinidad.
01:11McLean said he wishes the construction of the new terminal at the A&R Robinson International Airport to move to the official opening phase.
01:21Hoping that the new terminal will be open and ready in July.
01:25When contacted, NITCO's manager, engineering and program management, Dennis Haricharan, told TV6 News,
01:33NITCO continues to work with the contractor China Railway to complete the testing and commissioning phase of the A&R Robinson International Airport project.
01:43He said, however, he would need to seek guidance from China Railway before providing further details on the exact operational readiness date.
01:53Meantime, with approximately 3,000 rooms available to visitors on the island, McLean wishes the present stock be refurbished.
02:01But we need to get the existing room stock up to international standard, and the only way it's going to happen, because of what happened with COVID and the shutdown for two years,
02:11that really took a toll on Tobago, is that the government needs to come up with some sort of incentive for the hotels, guest houses, all of these things.
Be the first to comment