Tourism Trinidad Partners with Aquila Centre for Cruise Excellence

Tourism Trinidad and the Aquila Centre for Cruise Excellence have joined forces to enhance the visitor experience for cruise ship passengers visiting the island.

The Aquila Centre is known for its innovative training programs aimed at enhancing the customer experience within the cruise industry. The organization has trained thousands of tourism professionals in over 30 countries, making it a trusted partner for Tourism Trinidad Limited in the development of Trinidad’s cruise industry.

Aquila is the official training partner of the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association and is endorsed by all member cruise lines. They have more than 35 years of active experience working in the cruise industry. They create and execute training programs focused on helping destinations build training strategies to deliver excellence to cruise lines and their guests.

This partnership will focus on providing valuable training programs to tourism professionals in Trinidad and is aimed at improving customer service skills and enhancing the quality of service delivery. They will be conducting their training and analysis from mid-April to the end of May 2023 on product analysis, product development for tours, and online certification courses for tour guides.

The cruise ship season in Trinidad traditionally runs from November to the end of April. This current 2022–2023 season has seen, as of February 27th, thirty thousand and twenty-nine passengers arriving on 23 stops. This is served by an average of 15 to 20 tour guides and 34 visitor ambassadors.

Chief Executive Officer at Tourism Trinidad, Carla Cupid says, “This engagement is much needed, especially as we are seeing one of our busiest cruise seasons and are expecting it to be even busier in the next year. What is especially of note is the number of new cruise lines choosing Port of Spain as one of their stops. This bodes well for the downstream revenue-generating opportunities.”

Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, Senator Randall Mitchell says, “This industry has the potential to be sustainable and to evolve, so this engagement with Aquilla is a step in the right direction. Along with their product analysis, the training and certification will put us one step ahead of our competitors.”

He also noted that “this first engagement will be to do an assessment of the service delivery during the cruise ship season and of the tourism products available to cruise passengers. Also, this assessment will form the basis of the training to be delivered to a cruise stakeholder. I see this as part of the long-term vision to improve the sector’s service delivery and prepare stakeholders for future cruise seasons, which expect to see an increase in cruise calls.”

The partnership is expected to have a positive impact on the tourism industry in Trinidad and Tobago, and both Tourism Trinidad and Aquila Centre are confident that it will help increase the number of visitors to the island.