Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Sec­re­tary of Tourism Zor­isha Hack­ett is say­ing a heart­felt thank you to Trinida­di­ans, as she de­clared do­mes­tic tourism boom­ing for the East­er week­end.

Thou­sands of Trinida­di­ans flocked to the is­land for the four-day week­end, with air­line tick­ets sold out weeks in ad­vance.

Af­ter vo­cif­er­ous com­plaints from tourism stake­hold­ers, Caribbean Air­lines added ad­di­tion­al flights to meet the height­ened de­mand.

Ad­di­tion­al sail­ings were al­so added to max­imise sea routes to trans­port vis­i­tors to the is­land for the hol­i­days.

Ac­cord­ing to Hack­ett, 20,241 pas­sen­gers will use the seabridge be­tween April 1 and 9.

She said the fig­ures were pro­vid­ed by In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John based on 42 sail­ings util­is­ing the Buc­coo Reef, APT James, Galleons Pas­sage and Blue Wave Har­mo­ny fer­ries.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day, Hack­ett said the feed­back on the ground has been tremen­dous.

“Based on To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA) in­put, it seems we are very much in that place we need to be and hope that we can be con­sis­tent­ly based on our ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor.”

Hack­ett said the pop­u­lar beach­es on the is­land, such as Store Bay and Pi­geon Point, are over­flow­ing with vis­i­tors, es­pe­cial­ly Tri­nis.

How­ev­er, she ob­served To­bag­o­ni­ans were no­tice­ably but not sur­pris­ing­ly ab­sent.

“As To­bag­o­ni­ans, we are very tra­di­tion­al and su­per­sti­tious, so we don’t do much of the beach-go­ing on Good Fri­day and East­er Sun­day (ow­ing to su­per­sti­tious about ei­ther turn­ing in­to a fish or drown­ing),” she said.

“How­ev­er, I re­alise our vis­i­tors are hav­ing a mar­vel­lous time when look­ing at what’s been hap­pen­ing out there on the ma­rine park, all around the is­land, the traf­fic, what you’re see­ing in the su­per­mar­kets. It seems the sec­tor is hav­ing some suc­cess.”

Hack­ett said con­sis­ten­cy is cru­cial to the tourism sec­tor and be­lieves do­mes­tic tourism can­not be dis­count­ed.

“We want to say thank you to our twin- is­land sup­port. The do­mes­tic tourism sec­tor is def­i­nite­ly boom­ing.

“On week­ends like this, you see it more than ever. I want to shout out my Trinida­di­an broth­ers and sis­ters who de­cid­ed to not ven­ture fur­ther up the is­lands but to come right here in To­ba­go. We re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate it. We must al­ways show that ap­pre­ci­a­tion and not take it for grant­ed. We are very grate­ful.”

The Bethes­da/Les Coteaux rep­re­sen­ta­tive said she hoped To­bag­o­ni­ans “are on their A-game” when it comes to cus­tomer ser­vice.

She said she has been see­ing mi­nor im­prove­ment, but it re­mains a cause for con­cern. Hack­ett said her di­vi­sion is part­ner­ing with the TH­TA to pro­vide cours­es to the ser­vice sec­tor to raise the bar and el­e­vate vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence.

“Even through the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, to show the im­por­tance of the sec­tor to us and why we should be so warm and wel­com­ing.”

Hack­ett said she is look­ing for­ward to the Carn­bee/Mt Pleas­ant Sports Day at the Mt Pleas­ant Recre­ation Ground and the 98th an­nu­al Buc­coo Goat and Crab Race Fes­ti­val at the Buc­coo In­te­grat­ed Fa­cil­i­ty.

Hack­ett is one of the pa­trons of the Buc­coo event and said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is sup­port­ing both ven­tures.

She al­so thanked Caribbean Air­lines for hav­ing “open com­mu­ni­ca­tion” with the di­vi­sion.

The di­vi­sion and CAL held a meet­ing on April 1, ad­dress­ing air­lift, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing peak pe­ri­ods.