On August 3rd, 2012 the Government incorporated the Trinidad and Tobago Tourism Business Development Limited (TTTBDL) with a mandate to administer the Tobago Tourism Development Fund.
In response to the difficulties, including falling visitor arrivals, faced by some hotel and hotel-related businesses in Tobago following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, the Government instituted a framework for maintaining the lending operations of banks for the tourism sector.
In May 2012 the Government established the Tobago Tourism Development Fund (TTTDF) with a capitalization of $250.0 million with an initial capital of $45.0 million.
In June 2012, the Government established the Trinidad and Tobago Tourism Business Development Limited (TTTBDL) to administer the Tobago Tourism Development Fund and assigned the responsibility for managing the TTTBDL to the Export-Import Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (EXIMBANK).
Government agreed that the subsidy on the prime rates of interest charged by financial institutions for new and restructured loans should be 5.0 percentage points.
Effective June 2013, the TTTBDL began to issue Letter of Undertakings to financial institutions which were providing hotel and hotel-related businesses with restructured facilities or with new loans to upgrade and maintain hotels and hotel-related businesses with a cap valued at the equivalent of 50 hotel rooms.
Under this structural arrangement the Letters of Undertaking represented guarantees to financial institutions whose clients had businesses in Tobago.
In the case of default by anyone of those businesses, the financial institutions would be able to call on the Guarantee which was backed by cash.
