US an­ti-drug and hu­man-traf­fick­ing se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures may be help­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go curb crime, but tourism da­ta sug­gests To­ba­go is al­ready pay­ing the price.

Pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA), Regi­nald MacLean, told Guardian Me­dia that ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy for the Christ­mas pe­ri­od is well be­low nor­mal, with fig­ures rang­ing from 56 to 73 per cent, when the is­land would typ­i­cal­ly be op­er­at­ing at full ca­pac­i­ty.

On Tues­day, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris al­so warned that in­creased US mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in and around Trinidad and To­ba­go could have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor, cau­tion­ing that the is­land risks be­ing per­ceived as un­safe by vis­i­tors dur­ing its peak sea­son.

MacLean said the se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures are large­ly ac­cept­ed lo­cal­ly be­cause of the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion.

“I’ll be hon­est to say that what is hap­pen­ing — what the US is do­ing with drugs and hu­man traf­fick­ing — is wide­ly ac­cept­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­cause what they are do­ing is help­ing with crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty here,” MacLean said.

“We can’t con­tin­ue with 600 mur­ders. We have to re­duce that fig­ure to very few.”

He said much of the coun­try’s vi­o­lent crime is linked to or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works.

“When you re­al­ly think of where the mur­ders in our coun­try are com­ing from, it’s all re­lat­ed to the un­der­world. If what they do helps us deal with the un­der­world, so be it,” he said.

How­ev­er, MacLean said the tourism fall­out is al­ready vis­i­ble as the win­ter sea­son be­gins.

“What needs to hap­pen is that it needs to be dealt with as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, so we don’t lose our en­tire win­ter sea­son that is up­on us — es­pe­cial­ly af­ter los­ing our last win­ter sea­son due to states of emer­gency, which still ex­ist in our coun­try,” he said.

MacLean cit­ed spe­cif­ic ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els record­ed dur­ing the Christ­mas pe­ri­od.

“Wednes­day the 24th, 56.1 per cent; Thurs­day the 25th and Fri­day the 26th, 68.29 per cent; Sat­ur­day the 27th, 70.73 per cent; and Sun­day the 28th, 73.17 per cent,” he said.

“Three and a half months ago, that was av­er­ag­ing about 76 per cent. By this time, this should have been close to 100 per cent, if not 100.”

“There’s def­i­nite­ly fall­out,” he added. “Thank­ful­ly, it has picked up a lit­tle from the big neg­a­tives of three and a half months ago, but that fall­out is re­al.”

MacLean said that while To­ba­go ap­pears busy, ho­tels are not see­ing the ex­pect­ed re­turns.

“To­ba­go is busy. The ho­tels are not busy,” he said.

He ex­plained that much of the de­mand dur­ing the Christ­mas-to-New Year pe­ri­od is be­ing ab­sorbed by vil­las, guest­hous­es and small­er ac­com­mo­da­tion providers.

“We are good un­til Jan­u­ary 4. Then we take a lit­tle dip, and then we start pick­ing back up from about the 14th,” he said. “But it’s not a sea­son like we’ve had in pre­vi­ous years, pri­mar­i­ly be­cause of the neg­a­tive fall­out from the US–Venezuela predica­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go finds it­self in.

“Yes, it may not be the best thing for To­ba­go, but at the end of the day, if that is what it takes to get Trinidad and To­ba­go back from the crim­i­nals, so be it,” MacLean said. —Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les