By KARL E CUPID
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Tourism Minister Joseph Ross on Tuesday assured Tobago stakeholders that Government was “very serious” about implementing a tourism policy by next year. He was responding to claims that over the years there have been a number of tourism policy consultations and reports but nothing had come of them.
The assertion was made by several participants in contributions during the Tobago leg of a public consultation on the Draft National Tourism Policy of Trinidad and Tobago, at the Coco Reef Resort and Spa, in Crown Point. In fact, Kamau Akili, vice president of the environmental lobby group Environment Tobago, and a director at the Pigeon Point Heritage Park, told the session he has been keeping a file, now about two-and-a half-inches-thick, of the various consultations on the issue over the years which had yielded no follow-up action.
“You attend these consultations time and time again, reports are compiled and then nothing is heard after that until the next consultation,” he noted. He queried whether the current series of consultations would follow the same pattern. However, in his closing remarks at the end of the pre-lunch session, Ross said, “I want to give the assurance (that) we are very serious about formulating a policy for tourism in this country.”
He stressed it would be a document that “reflects the general will of the people” and will include a clause that provides for a review of the policy as time goes by. “The policy cannot be static!” Ross added the final document must also include measures to deal with the whole issue of gender bias as it relates to women in the tourism business and disadvantages they may experience simply because they are women.
Meanwhile, on the question of the confusing state of affairs as it relates to the roles of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), Tourism Development Company (TDC), and the Tourism Ministry, Ross admitted: “One of the challenges that we have is a clear demarcation of the roles and responsibilities of the THA, TDC, and the ministry.”
