THE demise of the regional airliner BWIA has had implications for the Crop-Over season.Trinidad and Tobago is one of the largest markets for foreign visitors for Crop-Over and the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) chairman Ken Knight says the major challenge facing the many requests coming out of that country was airlift. “Since the demise of BWIA, we have lost a considerable amount of airlift out of Trinidad and Tobago. We are primarily serviced by LIAT and certainly if we are to find that airlift we will be enhancing the number of visitors out of Trinidad and Tobago.“Trinidad and Tobago remains one of our principle driving forces from the perspective of overseas visitors into Crop-Over and this year, we are looking forward to a major portion of the diaspora coming out of Canada as a result of the cheaper airfares that are available now in Toronto and Montreal,” he said. Knight also told the DAILY NATION that renovations for the Queen’s Park Steel Shed were on track and should be ready by Independence.“Restorations should start mid-July and the completion date should be about mid November. We will have the steel shed up and ready for Independence.“Having done that, we will also renovate the Queen’s Park House which houses much of our art,” said Knight, who expects Queen’s Park House to be completely restored by year-end. According to Knight, the Board is in the process of making a recommendation to the Ministry of Development and Culture in terms of doing renovations to the Daphne Joseph-Hackett Theatre. Knight said it should cost Government no more than $4 million to outfit and restore those three facilities.He said that if the Ministry accepted the proposal to initiate the construction phase of work in relation to the Daphne Joseph-Hackett Theatre, that facility could be ready by next April.
