Tourism sector constrained despite Easter demand spike

East­er re­mains one of the most im­por­tant pe­ri­ods for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor, and this year the out­look re­flects strong de­mand across both is­lands.

Ho­tels, guest­hous­es and tour op­er­a­tors are re­port­ing steady book­ings, dri­ven large­ly by do­mes­tic trav­el, with pock­ets of near-full oc­cu­pan­cy in To­ba­go and con­sis­tent stay­ca­tion ac­tiv­i­ty in Trinidad.

Yet be­neath the sur­face, long-stand­ing struc­tur­al is­sues con­tin­ue to cap what should be a peak-sea­son wind­fall. The pic­ture that emerges is not one of weak de­mand, but of con­strained growth. In­ter­est is high, but ac­cess, pol­i­cy sig­nals and op­er­a­tional lim­i­ta­tions are shap­ing out­comes.

In To­ba­go, Kaye Trot­man, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Unique Bed, Break­fast and Self-Cater­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, told the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian that the south-west of the is­land is once again the fo­cal point of East­er ac­tiv­i­ty, with ac­com­mo­da­tion providers in and around Scar­bor­ough ben­e­fit­ing the most. Small­er prop­er­ties in these ar­eas are ap­proach­ing full oc­cu­pan­cy as vis­i­tors po­si­tion them­selves close to ma­jor events and beach­es.

“There are no ma­jor chal­lenges in terms of book­ings for the up­com­ing week­end; they are go­ing ahead as nor­mal. Fa­cil­i­ties from Scar­bor­ough down would be more ful­ly en­gaged be­cause most of the East­er ac­tiv­i­ties would be hap­pen­ing on this end, whether it is the Buc­coo fes­tiv­i­ties or Mount Pleas­ant,” Trot­man said.

Oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els, she added, vary de­pend­ing on lo­ca­tion and type of vis­i­tor. Prop­er­ties in high-traf­fic zones are see­ing book­ings of around 80 per cent to full ca­pac­i­ty, while those in more re­mote ar­eas are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing soft­er de­mand linked to a dif­fer­ent kind of trav­eller.

“On av­er­age, you will get some­thing like 80 per cent, de­pend­ing on where they are lo­cat­ed. Those in places like Char­lot­teville and Spey­side would not be as ful­ly booked be­cause those vis­i­tors are look­ing for qui­et re­treats in na­ture,” Trot­man ex­plained.

Ac­cess lim­its a

stronger fin­ish

De­spite the pos­i­tive book­ing trends, trans­porta­tion con­straints con­tin­ue to pre­vent To­ba­go from reach­ing full oc­cu­pan­cy across the board. Lim­it­ed avail­abil­i­ty of fer­ry and air­line seats has once again emerged as the defin­ing is­sue of the East­er pe­ri­od.

“Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, we are about 85 per cent full, but we should be 100 per cent be­cause peo­ple can­not get to To­ba­go. We have been try­ing for sev­er­al weeks and can­not get seats on the fer­ry or flights,” said Regi­nald MacLean, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion.

The chal­lenge, he stressed, is not sim­ply ca­pac­i­ty but tim­ing. Ad­di­tion­al flights and fer­ry sail­ings are of­ten in­tro­duced too late to cap­ture ear­ly plan­ners, par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­na­tion­al trav­ellers and high­er-spend­ing guests.

“When ex­tra flights are added at the last minute, those are sold out im­me­di­ate­ly be­cause peo­ple would have al­ready made al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments. Guests are not will­ing to wait and hope that they will get a flight, so they choose oth­er des­ti­na­tions,” MacLean added.

Mi­cro op­er­a­tors

car­ry heav­ier risk

The im­pact of any dis­rup­tion is mag­ni­fied among To­ba­go’s small and mi­cro ac­com­mo­da­tion providers, many of whom op­er­ate few­er than ten rooms and de­pend heav­i­ly on sea­son­al peaks such as East­er.

“If we are down to 40 or 50 per cent, you are talk­ing about three out of ten rooms. Some peo­ple would end up with no­body, which is a 100 per cent loss. Our per­cent­age im­pact is more stark be­cause of our size. These are peo­ple whose liveli­hoods are lit­er­al­ly at stake when book­ings fall,” Trot­man said.

He added that many small­er op­er­a­tors al­so face lim­i­ta­tions in at­tract­ing in­ter­na­tion­al book­ings. “For­eign trav­ellers want to book on­line be­fore they ar­rive, and many small op­er­a­tors do not have that fa­cil­i­ty. It makes it dif­fi­cult to con­firm book­ings be­fore­hand, so we de­pend more on do­mes­tic guests.”

SoE di­vides

in­dus­try im­pact

The State of Emer­gency (SoE) con­tin­ues to have mixed im­pli­ca­tions across the tourism sec­tor, with each seg­ment ex­pe­ri­enc­ing it dif­fer­ent­ly.

“For in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors, the mean­ing of a state of emer­gency is very dif­fer­ent, and it would have im­pact­ed us by prob­a­bly more than 10 per cent,” Trot­man said.

“The worst thing they could have done was stop the state of emer­gency and restart it. Peo­ple ask what changed so dras­ti­cal­ly, and you saw a drop-off in book­ings be­cause of that un­cer­tain­ty,” MacLean said.

In Trinidad, the im­pact has been far less pro­nounced with­in the ho­tel sec­tor.

“The SoE has no ef­fect what­so­ev­er on the in­dus­try. That ini­tial fear may have hap­pened with­in the first two months, but af­ter that, every­thing sim­mered down,” said Lisa Shandilya, pres­i­dent of the Tourism In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Do­mes­tic trav­el an­chors the sea­son

Across the in­dus­try, do­mes­tic trav­el con­tin­ues to be the back­bone of East­er ac­tiv­i­ty.

In To­ba­go, guest­hous­es and small­er es­tab­lish­ments are heav­i­ly re­liant on lo­cal vis­i­tors, while larg­er ho­tels main­tain a stronger in­ter­na­tion­al mix.

“For the last cou­ple of years, the pro­por­tion has been more do­mes­tic, es­pe­cial­ly for small prop­er­ties,” Trot­man said.

“We are prob­a­bly still about 75 per cent for­eign book­ings and 25 per cent do­mes­tic,” MacLean not­ed.

In Trinidad, the stay­ca­tion mod­el is dri­ving oc­cu­pan­cy as house­holds re­spond to tighter eco­nom­ic con­di­tions by opt­ing for lo­cal breaks in­stead of in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el.

“Stay­ca­tion is one of the best pro­mo­tions right now be­cause a lot of peo­ple do not have the in­come to trav­el out,” Shandilya said.

Trinidad steady with mixed oc­cu­pan­cy

Mean­while, ho­tels in Trinidad are re­port­ing mod­er­ate but sta­ble oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els over the East­er pe­ri­od, sup­port­ed by pro­mo­tions, group book­ings and do­mes­tic trav­el.

“Gen­er­al­ly, it would be about 60 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy for most ho­tels,” Shandilya said.

Short­er stays are al­so shap­ing book­ing pat­terns, with guests opt­ing for long week­end breaks rather than ex­tend­ed hol­i­days.

“You are talk­ing about four- or five-day stays, then a qui­et pe­ri­od, and then an­oth­er peak,” Shandilya ex­plained.

The Busi­ness Guardian al­so spoke to sev­er­al ho­tels, which point­ed to a mixed but steady per­for­mance across the sec­tor. Crews Inn Ho­tel and Yacht­ing Cen­tre re­port­ed full oc­cu­pan­cy for the pe­ri­od, while Ho­tel Nor­mandie in­di­cat­ed it is op­er­at­ing at about 80 per cent ca­pac­i­ty. Hilton Trinidad and Kapok Ho­tel are both at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 65 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy, re­flect­ing the wider trend of mod­er­ate—but not peak—book­ings in the Trinidad mar­ket.

Ris­ing costs re­shape the prod­uct

In­fla­tion is be­gin­ning to fil­ter through to the guest ex­pe­ri­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly among bed-and-break­fast op­er­a­tors who must ab­sorb high­er food costs.

“For those of­fer­ing break­fast, it is a chal­lenge be­cause re­tail prices have gone up, and not all of us can ab­sorb that. If you keep of­fer­ing the same items, you may have to re­duce por­tions or in­crease the price of your pack­age,” Trot­man said.

Long­stand­ing co­or­di­na­tion gaps

The re­cur­ring is­sues high­light­ed this East­er point to a broad­er chal­lenge with­in the tourism sec­tor, where co­or­di­na­tion be­tween key stake­hold­ers re­mains in­con­sis­tent.

“There needs to be a more co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach be­tween air­lines, fer­ry ser­vices, tourism bod­ies and the pri­vate sec­tor,” MacLean said, adding, “I have been in tourism since 1989, and the prob­lem has not changed.”