Gypsy moves to attract more Carnival visitors

Chairman of the National Carnival Commission (NCC),Winston “Gypsy” Peters has taken notice of reports of a decline in tourist arrivals for Carnival and plans to do something about it.

Commenting on Minister of Planning and Development Camille Robinson-Regis’s revelation of the figures earlier this week, Peters said, “I said that before. I keep telling them that for a long time, not only this year, that I saw a systematic thing where it was just dropping.”

A release from the Ministry regarding the decline in visitor arrivals from 2017 to 2018 said, “The total visitor arrivals to Trinidad and Tobago were 33,873 persons, with Trinidad recording 31,877 and Tobago 1,996 for the period under review.

“When compared with the Carnival period for 2017 (February 10 to 28), data showed a 3,575 or 9.5 per cent decrease in visitor arrivals to Trinidad and Tobago.”

Peters said the task now was to bring visitor numbers back up.

“The problem that we have in TT now is that we have exported our Carnival to every major metropolitan city in this world. So locals are not homesick to come home any more, and visitors are not interested in coming, because our country is being portrayed as an unsafe place.

“So one of the things we have to do with our Carnival is exhibit it out there as a safe place to be, and to distinguish our Carnival in a sort of way apart from the other carnivals that they are having, so that we can have people come here.”

Peters said stakeholders have to also look at Carnival as a money-making thing.

“We have to look at Carnival as a diversification tool, because I don’t think that we have looked at it like that before. We spoke about it, but nobody took a critical look at it, especially when we have money.”

He said he wanted to hear fewer complaints and see Carnival running smoothly, so “Every day we have a planning session for Carnival.”

Noting that other Caribbean countries have been coming to TT to market their carnivals, Peters said it is because they know TT is the mecca of Carnival. But TT’s Carnival now needs to be aggressively advertised.

“Gone are the days when our Carnival ran on its own, when we were an authority unto ourselves and we didn’t need that, because TT Carnival was the best carnival in the world. Coupled with the fact that we have exported Carnival so far and wide, in a lot of ways we are competing with ourselves.”He complained that TT’s Carnival was now being likened to Jamaica’s, “and their carnival is just a few years old. I don’t think that should be. Jamaica should be referencing our Carnival to theirs.”

He added: “What I try to tell people for the longest while is that Carnival is not a one-off activity, Carnival is not an event as it were, Carnival is our way of life. Nothing is wrong with our Carnival.

“So right now we are marketing ourselves within those carnivals outside of TT, the ones that we think have a significant likeness.”

Peters said a TT contingent has since been to “Barbados Cropover, Jamaica Carnival, off to Notting Hill from today (August 21)” and will be going to Miami in October because, he said, those are “serious extensions of TT Carnival.”

He said as Minister of Culture, “I marketed TT Carnival for two years as ‘D Real Carnival,’ because I saw what was happening to Carnival, because I saw at that point that our Carnival started to lose some steam.”

TT had lost its identity, he said, “So we have to again identify our Carnival, we have to enhance our product and we have to market it.”