THA Minority Leader Kelvon Morris has slammed the Division of Tourism for providing "misleading" figures on the number of international arrivals for January 2024.
The division posted a graphic on its social media pages on February 14 stating that the island welcomed approximately 27,899 international visitors for January. The division said it was "great news" and a 27.2 per cent increase from the previous year. It said it was the highest number of arrivals for any January since 2017.
Tourism Secretary Tashia Burris has come under fire from Morris, who, during a press conference on Friday and a Facebook like on Monday, questioned the figures.
According to UN Tourism, "A visitor is a traveller taking a trip to a main destination outside his/her usual environment, for less than a year, for any main purpose (business, leisure or other personal purpose) other than to be employed by a resident entity in the country or place visited. A visitor (domestic, inbound or outbound) is classified as a tourist (or overnight visitor), if his/her trip includes an overnight stay, or as a same-day visitor (or excursionist) otherwise."
Morris accused Burris of "fudging" the arrival figures to make her division appear to be performing well.
In a Facebook live on Sunday, Burris said, “There are plenty people out here who are unwashed and illiterate and have you believing lies.”
“When I say unwashed – I mean they’re not baptised, you have no part of God in them, they have no part of the spirit in them, they out here doing evil. They are waking up every morning to try and make my life and your life a living hell – unwashed and illiterate. They will have you believing lies.”
She added: “Some people back home will have you all believing that nothing is happening in Tobago, nothing good is happening in Tobago, but every time we take one step forward for good, people try to drag us ten steps back.”
Morris said if the figures were accurate, it would be a record for Tobago and something worth celebrating.
"Usually the average international arrivals arriving by air or sea, yachties and so on, is about 3,000 or so in January," he said..
"In interrogating the figures, I wanted to get an idea where did these people come from. I know at this time you only have British Airways coming out of UK, Condor coming out of Germany and Caribbean Airlines coming out of New York. When I did the research... only 1,872 persons came to this island by air, and a further 22 persons came by sea. These are visitors, and the reason they are categorised as international visitors is that they are disembarking and staying on the island for at least one night. That is the internationally accepted definition of a visitor."
He said he dissected figures from the Port Authority on cruise-ship arrivals for January and realised where the 27,899 figure came from.
"The division calculated every passenger that boarded these cruise ships. The secretary decided to count all those passengers. Whether you came off the cruise ship; whether you disembarked and wa
