Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go hote­liers are al­ready see­ing a high­ly suc­cess­ful Car­ni­val sea­son, with oc­cu­pan­cy rates reach­ing up to 100 per cent across most prop­er­ties.

With just four days re­main­ing be­fore the three-day To­ba­go Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val, which runs from the 25th to 27th, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, Al­pha Lord, said this sea­son was shap­ing up to be one of the is­land’s best in years.

The small­er prop­er­ties are ful­ly booked, medi­um-sized prop­er­ties have 85 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy, and larg­er es­tab­lish­ments are be­tween 70 and 100 per cent filled.

“By and large, the pos­i­tiv­i­ty that sur­rounds the Car­ni­val is re­al, and the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor is see­ing a bump in busi­ness for the month of Oc­to­ber, al­beit for a few days, we are see­ing that busi­ness, and we are grate­ful for it.”

Lord not­ed that com­pared to the first two years, this Car­ni­val has gen­er­at­ed high­er re­turns.

“We are do­ing bet­ter (com­pared to last year). I can’t re­mem­ber the per­cent­ages but I can say for a fact based on the pos­i­tiv­i­ty sur­round­ing the week­end and the feed­back from the mem­bers, I think all the mem­bers are in a po­si­tion where the oc­cu­pan­cy is greater than that of last year.”

De­spite can­cel­la­tions due to lim­it­ed seats on the air bridge, he said the over­all im­pact on the tourism sec­tor was min­i­mal.

“The ho­tels are be­com­ing more and more in­clined to the val­ue of the Car­ni­val be­cause they are see­ing it grow. I think the third year is go­ing to rep­re­sent an im­prove­ment on the first two years in terms of the suc­cess­es of the stake­hold­ers and set the pace for the fourth year.”

In 2022, ho­tels were re­port­ed­ly 60 per cent full by Au­gust. 

Days be­fore the fes­ti­val’s sec­ond in­stal­ment, in 2023, ho­tels were re­port­ing be­tween 30 and 95 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy. 

Lord is hope­ful CAL will be able to meet the fu­ture de­mands of the Car­ni­val, giv­en its pos­i­tive im­pact on the is­land’s econ­o­my.

“What CAL (Caribbean Air­lines Ltd) doesn’t seem to un­der­stand is the tim­ing they put on those flights does not serve the in­ter­est of the trav­eller. I have a mem­ber who in­di­cat­ed a month ago he lost (a group of) 100 for book­ing for the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od be­cause the group at­tempt­ing to book at that time—an in­ter­na­tion­al group—could not get to and from To­ba­go.”

Lord hopes there are plans to pre­vent any pos­si­ble back­log by ac­com­mo­dat­ing stand­by pas­sen­gers hop­ing to get to To­ba­go for the Car­ni­val.

He went on to ap­plaud the Port Au­thor­i­ty for meet­ing the de­mands. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 17,000 peo­ple are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive via the sea bridge for the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od and for cool down evening in the fol­low­ing days. 

While the Car­ni­val seems to be get­ting high praise, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke vowed to do away with the fes­ti­val.

Speak­ing to the me­dia dur­ing a PDP press con­fer­ence on Mon­day, Duke said if he had his way, To­ba­go Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val would be a thing of the past.

He said, “When I oc­cu­py that of­fice, I will be ban­ning the sec­ond To­ba­go Car­ni­val. I want to make it ab­solute­ly clear.” Duke says the Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val would be re­placed with a fam­i­ly day.