SERVICES MATTER
Trinidad and Tobago Coalition of Service Industries
5 th
Annual Services Week
By Michelle Hustler, GIZ
The Trinidad and Tobago Coalition of Service Industries hosted its fifth annual services week from October 29 to November 2, 2012. Having now attended three of these five events, it’s quite clear that the activity is bigger, better attended and more impressive with each consecutive year. Professor Miguel Carillo, Executive Director of Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, joked during the opening ceremonies, at the Excellence in Service Awards, that he looks forward to the day when the event more closely resembles the Grammys. Knowing the TTCSI, as I do, it may not be that many more years before I’m
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services scoop
ushered down the red carpet to my seat in a blaze of flashing photographs. For those of you who missed it, I’ll do my best to summarize this important, dynamic, week-long trade in services event, covering four sub-sectors, an industry awards show and an exciting closing event in the four pages allotted to this article in the Scoop, however, it really would be a much easier feat to simply have all the readers attend next year’s event, than it would to compose a thorough four page summary of Services Week.
Excellence in Service Awards As I greeted the TTCSI staff at the door to the ballroom, my first impression was that the event certainly had the vibe of an awards ceremony. In true Caribbean fashion, attendees and prospective awardees were dressed to the nines. Drinks were being served by attentive staff. The crowd buzzed. Promptly at 6:30pm, as scheduled, the event was underway. This year, like the last, there were seven awards categories, including a ‘Special Award’, awarded last year to Anya Ayoung-Chee, season 9 winner of Project Runway. This year the ‘Special Award’ went to Roger Al the creator of I'm Santana: the Movie, the highest grossing feature film produced in Trinidad and a YouTube viral hit. If you haven’t yet caught this Trini puppet drama… well, go on, I’ll wait
2013 EDITION