Tag Archives: Tourism

“So we can assume that the restrictions now in place worldwide will only be lifted gradually over the next 12 months. Some semblance of normalcy will not return until the middle of 2021. “There is no way that the private sector and the government can carry the labour force for …

“[…] Ultimately policy is made by politicians who of course, may have other considerations which influence their decisions. However, just as it would be folly for politicians to ignore the advice of medical professionals in dealing with the coronavirus public health crisis, so too the laws of Economics are inexorable. …

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has announced that Trinidad and Tobago will close its borders to all visitors for the next 14 days from midnight 17 March. Meanwhile, schools will remain closed until 20 April 2020. The decision, according to Rowley, is a first step to stop the twin-island republic …

We have already entered what is clearly going to be the silliest of the silly season of election time. The silliness always has the potential to become deadly. Its near-disastrous level is the result of currently having an opposition that has a mountain to climb to regain public trust and …

In last Monday’s budget statement, there were glaring omissions common to the two brief statements relating to the creative industries and tourism respectively. The following is the sum total of what was said about the creative industries sector: “Carifesta XIV, hosted by Trinidad and Tobago, underscored the strides we have …

At the Panorama semi-finals two weeks ago, I became involved in a discussion with Eintou Springer, her daughter Attilah and an official of Pan Trinbago. The discussion turned to how Pan Trinbago spent the taxpayers’ money it received from complicit governments in the past and apparently continues on the same path. …

The djouba is a joyful dance of West Africa, said to have been brought by slaves and diffused throughout the Caribbean and the Americas. It also refers to certain musical rhythms executed on the tambour-djouba drum. It is strongly present in the culture of Martinique. Caribbean dance—much, but not all …

I congratulate the Minister of Tourism, Randall Mitchell MP, for his reported admission that Carnival has failed as a tourism product. In 2015, I had already described “the acceleration of the decline of Carnival into a minority sport”. Only last week I complained again that our rich and varied musical …

“Stay in tong!” I shouted those words on Sunday last, in appreciation of the scintillating performance of Coffee Street, San Fernando band, Skiffle, in Adam Smith Square, Woodbrook, Port of Spain, at the second event put on by the Music in the Districts programme. This event confirmed that other pan …

Later today at the Tobago Jazz Experience 2018, Fantasia is scheduled to be a headline act. I do not know in what keys Fantasia sings her rhythm and blues, but her appearance in Tobago today is a case of Fantasia in G, because the engagement of such artistes is part …

Trinidad has twice received rave reviews from the New York Times (NYT) regarding our food and culture. These reviews were published in the travel section of that newspaper. These are travel advisories of a very different kind from the negative ones we receive regarding crime and terrorism. The more recent …

I wrote this column sitting adjacent to Mayaro beach enjoying a slice of the August holidays. It is about two hours  to sunset on as glorious a day as it gets in this piece of paradise. A little earlier in the day I had—unusually for me—a daytime snooze, on the …