Festivals body: Tobagonians not promoting October carnival enough

Antonia Thomas, technical production officer at the Tobago Festivals Commission Ltd, has said Tobagonians must embrace a greater role in making the October carnival a success.

The island celebrated the third edition of the festival this year from October 25-27, with generally good reviews. Hotels were almost 100 per cent booked for the period, with the majority of the visitors coming from Trinidad.

Thomas was speaking at a Tobago carnival review meeting at the Shaw Park Complex on November 20, at which some Scarborough residents gave their observations and opinions.

There were suggestions on improving the marketing of the carnival, including putting up the signage earlier, at all entry locations of both islands, targeted marketing to regional university students and making the events more widely known on social media.

Thomas agreed, but added that Tobagonians were not taking any responsibility for or the opportunity to promote Tobago carnival. Some were just waiting on the THA to do everything, and then criticising it on social media.

“Barbados’ community bought in to their Crop Over wholesale. The entire country made it their responsibility to ensure it is well marketed, when people come the customer service is good, and that people have things to do when they get to the island.

“I’m not saying it (Tobago carnival) is perfect, but it’s an opportunity for us as a community to come together, sell and make this product. As a community, people need to take some responsibility for how carnival is portrayed on the socials, which are what people pay attention to.

“We have to be careful and take ownership for some things. It’s ours. It’s our taxpayers’ money being spent. We have to take some responsibility and put good things out there.”

She said the Festival Committee should not have to go to every individual, group and business to give them ideas on how they could take advantage of the influx of people coming into the island during that time. They should be proactive and create opportunities for themselves.

One woman said people were pleased with the staging area in Market Square carpark, where there was a judging point and masqueraders could “display themselves.”

But she said some people wanted a “proper stage” to cross and suggested a few locations.

Thomas made note of the suggestion and said it was being considered, but she believed people were holding on to the idea of the Trinidad version of Carnival and were not opening their minds to what Tobago carnival could be.

She said the essence of carnival was that the road was the stage, and there were spectators lining the roads to view the masqueraders. Therefore there was no need for a specific stage.

There were also complaints of a lack of flights between the islands.

Thomas said there had been conversations with Caribbean Airlines on increasing the number of flights between Tobago and Trinidad, and the airline accommodated a few more, but not enough.

She believed intervention by the central government might be necessary and hoped the situation would be sorted out by October 2025.

Meanwhile, she said the Port Authority had been more amenable to the request for more frequent ferry sailings.

She said there had been 23,000 visitors to Tobago carnival, mostly from Trinidad but also from other Caribbean, American and African countries, Europe and Asia, such as Brazil, Canada, the US Virgin Islands, Lithuania, Cuba, Honduras, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Austria.