It is the fault of previous governments of Trinidad and Tobago to not diversify away from the reliance on oil, but hey, when you're getting billions of US dollars from oil, you tend to be blinded by the truckloads of money coming in the door.
It was purely by chance that I encountered the picture taken on Oxford street (see below), because the only way you would notice banners that high up, is if you're riding on one of London's double decker buses. I never actually originally planned or had any inclination to go on a bus around that area, but that led me to researching what the hashtag #London is Open meant, which led me to this.
#LondonIsOpen is a major campaign – launched by the Mayor, Sadiq Khan – to show that London is united and open for business, and to the world, following the EU referendum.
It shows the world that London remains entrepreneurial, international and full of creativity and possibility. It reassures the more than one million foreign nationals who live in London that they will always be welcome, and that any form of discrimination will not be tolerated.
London is the best city in the world. We're entrepreneurial, international and outward looking. The key ingredient of our city’s success has been the flow of brilliant ideas and talent from across the globe. Our city is comfortable in its diversity, proud of its history and optimistic about its future. London is open.
Sadiq is urging all Londoners, organisations and businesses to show their support for the #LondonIsOpen message via social media and other creative ways.
We don’t simply tolerate each other’s differences, we celebrate them. Many people from all over the globe live and work here, contributing to every aspect of life in our city. We now need to make sure that people across London, and the globe, hear that #LondonIsOpen. I urge everyone to get involved with this simple but powerful campaign to send a positive message to the world.
Sadiq Khan (Mayor of London)
As this website so handily indicates for the year of 2016 - Visitor Numbers , the top 10 visited attractions in England took in 42 MILLION visitors. Think about that for a minute. 42 million tourists, imagine what that does for any economy. Compare that to Trinidad and Tobago which has just 1.4 million residents. Note - these figures may not be truly representative of the top tourist destinations in London.
| Rank | Site | Total visits |
| 1 | British Museum | 6,420,395 |
| 2 | National Gallery | 6,262,839 |
| 3 | Tate Modern | 5,839,197 |
| 4 | Natural History Museum (South Kensington) | 4,624,113 |
| 5 | Southbank Centre | 3,909,376 |
| 6 | Somerset House | 3,443,220 |
| 7 | Science Museum | 3,245,750 |
| 8 | Victoria and Albert Museum (South Kensington) | 3,022,086 |
| 9 | Tower of London | 2,741,126 |
| 10 | Royal Museums Greenwich | 2,451,023 |
There is such an amazing plethora of information for tourists traveling to London it's hard to pick out the definitive one but these do very well
1) Visit London
2) Time Out London
Either of these websites have huge events calendars that you get overwhelmed with the choices of what can one do with their day in London. I should point out that these are totally relevant and updated with all the information one can need to visit each location.
Conversely, for Trinidad and Tobago, the official website of the Ministry of Tourism has 6 attractions and no events calendar. Likewise the Discover Trinidad and Tobago website has an impressive calendar of events but absolutely no further information on 99% of the events. Yes, the website is splashy and showcases Trinidad and Tobago Culture and places, but it is not associated with the official Tourism policy of Trinidad and Tobago.
Someone told me earlier this year, that if one was a visitor from any other country in the world and they had say - 1,000 US dollars to spend, and they came to Trinidad and Tobago, what does one spend that money on? Because there is no coherence between any of the Tourism operators or any festivals etc. Essentially, what should've been our biggest selling point, just about gets by with government spending on Tourism which is barely made back by actual tourists spending money.
It further does not help that the last 15 years that the crime rate has risen unbelievably - 5249 murders as per this website's count - TT Crime, and for 2017 the country is well on it's way to having the highest murder total in it's short history. Littered in between the dead are foreigners as well, so, as a result of this, travel advisories have been issued by foreign governments warning tourists about the safety of their potential stay and could very well scare away thousands of potential tourists.
As a fairly damning indication that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago does nothing for Tourists to Trinidad and Tobago, let me give you an example of what happened on a Caribbean Airlines flight that I was on from Barbados to Trinidad. Note that flight path - Barbados to Trinidad.
During the flight of just under 1 hour, a couple videos were shown, one of which was a tourism video promoting Antigua attractions, excellent production value as well as ministers from the Antigua Government giving their perspectives of Antigua culture. That to me was both appalling and laughable at the same time because Caribbean Airlines is the state-owned airline and flag carrier of Trinidad and Tobago.
Disclaimer - This post was not meant to provide solutions to the current lack of a coherent tourist strategy in Trinidad and Tobago, it was meant as a comparison between what a first world country has (England) and what a still wannabe first world country (clearly third world) has (Trinidad and Tobago) still to do close the massive gap.
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