Incentives for all Tobago hotel projects

THE EDITOR: Just spent a very enjoyable long weekend in Tobago that went off without a hitch.

Indeed, the air bridge worked fine both ways. Service in the local shops, bars and restaurants was good and friendly.

The highlight of the visit was a lazy Sunday spent at Pigeon Point, which has to be one of the planet’s most arresting landscapes.

Of course, Tobago also has at least ten other top-class beaches, along with large areas of tropical rainforest, which also contain a number of beautiful waterfalls and fresh-water bathing pools. Also, in the Mount Irvine area, surfing is another major attraction, in addition to golf.

Given its amazing diversity of natural beauty, Tobago should be the Bali of the southern Caribbean. It should have 40,000 top-of-the-line hotel rooms with an 85 per cent occupancy rate.

Yet, for some time now, the island has hotel occupancy levels of below 20 per cent and over 70 per cent of the workforce is employed by the Government.

To achieve this level of failure in the marketing of such amazing natural resources must have taken a special effort on the part of the central Government and the THA.

Now we are in such a state of panic that we are placing all our bets on a single Jamaican horse called Sandals.

Sure, this world-class outfit seems to have met with success in most of its projects and we now expect it to kick-start Tobago’s recovery in the hospitality industry.

However, to get the Sandals project up and running involves giving many concessions by way of low or no duties and taxes, that have to be paid by other smaller hospitality investors.

In this situation, the fairest approach in the matter could be to give a range of incentives to all hotel projects, commensurate with the level of investment.

GREGORY WIGHT, Maraval