By Joan Rampersad Monday, October 1 2012

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FOCUSING ON TOURISM: Tourism Development Company's Cornell Buckredee and Yolande Selman are presented with calendars from Vade Walker, also of the TDC...

SOME 16 stakeholders in the tourism industry on Friday set up booths at the Brian Lara Promenade, Port-of-Spain, to showcase what they had to offer the tourist and locals alike.

Cornell Buckredee, general manager, marketing at the Tourism Development Company (TDC) said the event was a culmination of a month of activities celebrating World Tourism Day.

Buckredee said the promenade was chosen as it was the main thoroughfare in the city.

“Adults, schoolchildren, you name it, every part of the national demographic is passing through this area and today they get an opportunity to see the 16 different facets of tourism in TT, and to interact with the stakeholders on a one and one basis.”

The ultimate goal, he said, was to bring tourism into the national focus, in a way that can make tourism successful in TT. “Every man, woman and child in this country, we’ve come out to show them the importance of tourism, the different aspects of tourism, and what their part in tourism could mean,” said Buckredee.

He ended by stating, “Tourism in TT and the people are synonymous. It’s one and the same. That is our product. Our product is the people.”

Yolande Selman, general manager, product development, TDC concurred with Buckredee, stating: “And we couldn’t have brought it to the public in a better way. This is a focal point. Thousands of people pass between here and City Gate. And how else?

“Our product is us. It is not the beach, it is not Trinidad, it is not anything you can catch. It is how we feel it is how we respond to people.

“When I look around and see the cross-section of people of TT, we could not have chosen a better point and a better time and a better place.”

Among the organisations which had booths on the Promenade were the National Carnival Commission (NCC), Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation (TUCO), National Carnival Bandleaders Assoc-

iation (NCBA), Asa Wright Nature Centre, Turtle Village Trust, Small Tourism Acco-

mmodation of Trinidad and Tobago (STAOTT), the Chag-

uaramas Development Authority (CDA), the Zoological Society, the Tassa Association of TT, Forestry Division, Trinidad and Tobago Tour Guide Association, and TT Tourist Transport Service Association.