To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean says flight can­cel­la­tions have not stopped fol­low­ing re­cent re­gion­al air­space dis­rup­tions, but there is no pan­ic among vis­i­tors cur­rent­ly on the is­land.

MacLean told Guardian Me­dia ho­tels across To­ba­go have be­gun re­ceiv­ing can­cel­la­tions and re­book­ing re­quests as some US flights are be­ing rerout­ed or called off amid de­vel­op­ments in­volv­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro.

He said while the sit­u­a­tion is still un­fold­ing, most vis­i­tors who are al­ready on the is­land are con­tin­u­ing their ac­tiv­i­ties as nor­mal.

Ac­cord­ing to MacLean, the tourism sec­tor is now in a “wait and see” mode as hote­liers and op­er­a­tors try to de­ter­mine how long the dis­rup­tions may last and what im­pact they could have on oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els.

“We have not had a sin­gle prob­lem here, bar­ring the can­cel­la­tions that have start­ed com­ing in. Our guests are all go­ing about their busi­ness as nor­mal,” MacLean said.

He added that To­ba­go re­mains calm and func­tion­al de­spite the un­cer­tain­ty af­fect­ing re­gion­al air trav­el.

“The on­ly con­cern they have...is whether or not they have a flight to go home.”

MacLean said there is no rea­son for fear at this time.

“To­ba­go must con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing as usu­al while close­ly mon­i­tor­ing de­vel­op­ments in the re­gion and their po­ten­tial im­pact on air trav­el and tourism.

“It’s noth­ing that we could fear. I don’t see that there is go­ing to be an in­va­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go by any­one.

“We just have to go about our busi­ness, try and do what we can do and not fear the pop­u­la­tion.”

—Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les