As preparations for Tobago’s carnival kick into high gear, getting people on the island is now the focus.
Tashia Burris, Secretary for Tourism, Culture, Antiquities and Transport in the Tobago House of Assembly, told Loop News that connectivity is a big deal.
“We’ve had an ongoing connectivity problem between Trinidad and Tobago and my biggest pain right now is making sure we have that connectivity when we need it to happen,” she said.
She said they are in talks with Caribbean Airlines as well as other operators in the space.
“How can we do a combination of things that are happening, which is improving the connection between Piarco and Tobago and getting more flights to land directly in Tobago and take most of their passengers to Trinidad,” she said.
In the first year, however, the focus would be on purchase from Tobagonians and Trinidadians as the stock of rooms is not sufficient to accommodate an influx of foreign visitors in addition to locals.
“Our room space will be depleted with the mere arrival of Trinidadians. We wouldn’t have to aggressively market to anyone else,” Burris said.
She said they had had cruise operators approach them to dock cruise ships during the event to address the issue.
The emphasis is on highlighting Tobago’s culture for the carnival and may foreshadow the next marketing push for the island.
Burris said that while the traditional attitude has been to push sun, sea and sand, she believes the marketing of the culture is what would set the island apart from others in the Caribbean.
“The reality is that we now have to build our Orange economy to be able to trade our island. It’s not enough to have these beautiful pictures, we want to provide a 365-degree immersive experience, but first, we have to get people here, so the focus is on solving that,” she said.
On the flip side, she said, they are focused on customer service training and having conversations with the hotel association to encourage members to keep updating and look at things like competitive pricing that would encourage guests to stay. still allowed hoteliers to make a profit.
She said they should also develop a plan to aggressively target Trinidadians, as they are the largest source market in terms of numbers.
“We have never had a targeted marketing campaign for Trinidad; it’s always something we’ve taken for granted that they’re going to come here. Now what we need to do is have a conversation and say, hey, when you come to Tobago here’s what you can do because there are some people who think that all they can do is go to the beach, which is not the case . So this means that our information centers should be able to guide people, our tour guides and associations should be more visible in space so that people have an idea of what I can do, what I can I’m waiting for you,” she explained.
She said of the carnival, there will be tourism brand ambassadors visible in the space, offering information and giving away a Tobago passport. The passport will allow visitors to collect stamps at events and attractions.
“Like Trinidadians like to focus on collecting their bands, you have your Tobago passport and we want to encourage people to keep coming back, so at the end when you collect 100 stamps, how do we incentivize you for the island tour?”
