'Govt not treating tourism as a pillar of diversification'

Tourism in­dus­try stake­hold­er Lor­raine Pouchet says the Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion to tourism falls far short of what is need­ed if Trinidad and To­ba­go is se­ri­ous about us­ing the sec­tor to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my away from its de­pen­dence on oil and gas.

Speak­ing in re­sponse to con­cerns that tourism re­ceived on­ly a brief men­tion dur­ing the bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Pouchet said she was not sur­prised by what she de­scribed as a fa­mil­iar pat­tern of gov­ern­ments talk­ing about di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion through tourism with­out back­ing those promis­es with mean­ing­ful ac­tion.

“It was de­ja vu. Over the many years, most gov­ern­ments, if not all, have spo­ken about di­ver­si­fy­ing the econ­o­my through tourism, and no­body has done it,” said Pouchet, pres­i­dent of The Trinidad & To­ba­go In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion.