Tourism secretary: 'Family-friendly' Store Bay facility coming

THA Secretary of Tourism Tashia Burris said one of the major reasons behind the proposed redevelopment of the Store Bay Beach Facility is to make the area more family-friendly.

In an interview on the Tobago Updates morning show on September 4, Burris said the THA has received reports of "lawlessness" taking place at the facility.

She said on assuming office in December 2021, she visited the sites and attractions that fall under her division, one being the Store Bay Beach Facility. She said she was given a tour, spoke with vendors there and was even briefed on the current touting situation.

“The consensus that I got from the horse's mouth, which is the people who use the facility on a daily basis, is that Store Bay has been neglected for a number of years and it is long overdue for an upgrade.

"Fast-forward into later in 2022-2023, we had our district town hall meetings and at the meeting for Canaan/Bon Accord – persons expressed concerns about the state of Store Bay and the lawlessness that was taking place there along with the fact that it was no longer an attraction that visitors can enjoy safely with their families.”

Aggressive touting has been a longstanding problem at the facility with visitors being hassled by strange men at the entrance of the carpark to book boat tours to the Nylon Pool and Buccoo Reef.

In 2020 after the covid19 pandemic, the facility was reopened with a refurbished ticketing booth as the THA and Store Bay Reef Operators Association signed a memorandum of understanding for a ticketing system for Buccoo Reef tours.

However, that system crashed, as touts who previously ruled the beachfront returned. At that time, boat owners said the system was neither practical nor sustainable.

Burris said a commitment was made that the Store Bay facility upgrade would be prioritised in this fiscal year, 2023-2024.

She said as a result, consultation was started to find out what people wanted to see in an upgrade. “We didn’t simply want to slap paint on walls, we didn’t simply want to do cosmetic upgrades but rather we wanted to create a facility that would serve the interest of the tenants and users of the current facility and help them to upgrade their businesses."

She said because Tobago is positioning itself as a cruise destination, it was felt that feedback should be sought from cruise lines and their passengers.

She said as a result E-idcot was commissioned to do surveys and an initial design was prepared. She said it was unveiled and presented internally to stakeholders in April at a meeting of 64 people.

She denied reports that work is set to begin later this month.

“We are actually still in that process of determining what the users want. We can’t commence any major upgrade works without completing this process. We have to go through all of the processes that are necessary to ensure that people are comfortable wth the final product."

She said she had repeatedly stressed that the process is not complete.

"So nobody has been evicted, there is no procurement process that is going on for a contractor to come in, there is no developer that was chosen. We are still trying to decide what this final design is going to look like.”

She also stressed that no current tenants would be displaced.

"We would definitely continue the conversations about things like rent and how we are managing these things once the facility design has been approved and completed and is going ahead.”

Chairman of the TT Chamber of Industry and Commerce Curtis Williams said he was well aware of the planned project.

“It’s a great idea to redevelop the space, it’s long overdue."

He said the area was run down and illegal activities took place on the site.

"We at the Tobago Division of the TT Chamber of Industry and Commerce support the redevelopment of the area.”