“HOWARD CHIN LEE obviously hasn’t inherited the mastery of arithmetic that Chinese people are so well known for.”

The damning statement comes from key persons involved in Tobago’s tourism, even as Tourism Minister Chin Lee continues to insist that the industry is alive and well in the Sister Isle.

However, TnT Mirror has discovered that’s not the case, and many of the estimated 15,000 persons employed in the service and hospitality sector are now bawling.

TREVOR ACKAN
… “We depend on
tourism for survival,
but we are losing it.”

Trevor Ackan is the chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Income Tour Operators Association, and he has a very good idea of the real state of tourism.

“The problem is always crime,” he says.

“You have the same broom sweeping both islands, so when some one hears about the ridiculous crime rate in Trinidad and Tobago, they automatically think that Tobago has its fair share of that.”

But while he admits that crime on the Sister Isle is on the rise, he says it’s nothing compared to “big sister” Trinidad.

He says that, coupled with international terror concerns have caused arrival figures to plummet.

“I can’t see how Chin Lee gets those figures … unless he’s adding Trinidadians arriving in Tobago, business travellers, cruise ship capacities, as well as anyone simply filling out an immigration form.

“We depend on tourism for survival, but we are losing it,” says Ackan, who’s been running his tours for almost quarter-century.

He says it’s unreasonable for anyone to expect that European arrivals will pick up anytime soon, as the terror cloud promises to loom for some time to come.

“That’s why we have to encourage local and regional citizens to support this industry before it dies,” he says.

But there’s a problem there. Another service operator says the standard of service in Tobago is very poor.

“These people here treat Trinidadians like dogs … it’s almost like they home in on you to give you anything but ‘Tobago love’ … I’m a Trini, and it doesn’t bother me much again, because I am here to make money,” he says.

Another agrees that there are many sub-standard attitudes in the tourism sector, citing poor communication skills among guides and hotel employees.

“When people come here and hear us speaking like a backwater banana republic, that’s all the respect we will get… these people here can’t even say what they mean sometimes.

“Sometimes I feel ashamed … a guide might think he’s being funny, but the tourists are really laughing at ‘the uneducated little back island boy’ … the whole thing puts a spoke in Patrick Manning’s Vision 20/20 wheel.”