An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Car­ni­val’s con­tri­bu­tion ex­tends well be­yond cul­tur­al pride. It is a com­plex eco­nom­ic sys­tem that gen­er­ates jobs, dri­ves for­eign ex­change and sus­tains en­tire cre­ative in­dus­tries when prop­er­ly sup­port­ed, pan­el­lists agreed dur­ing Term Fi­nance’s Well­ness Wednes­day we­bi­nar, Car­ni­val & Cul­ture – Fu­elling Eco­nom­ic Growth in T&T.

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) CEO Kei­ba Mot­t­ley re­vealed that the NCC is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank on a pi­lot study to mea­sure Car­ni­val’s eco­nom­ic im­pact. The ini­tia­tive is fo­cused on build­ing a method­ol­o­gy that the coun­try can own and ap­ply to fu­ture fes­ti­vals, al­low­ing pol­i­cy­mak­ers and stake­hold­ers to make ev­i­dence-based de­ci­sions around in­vest­ment and growth.

Da­ta col­lec­tion will take place through­out the sea­son, with enu­mer­a­tors sur­vey­ing pa­trons at events. Pub­lic co­op­er­a­tion, Mot­t­ley not­ed, will be crit­i­cal to cap­tur­ing the true scale of spend­ing, em­ploy­ment, and busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty gen­er­at­ed by Car­ni­val.

Cre­ative di­rec­tor of Lost Tribe, Valmi­ki Ma­haraj, urged a broad­er un­der­stand­ing of the fes­ti­val. Car­ni­val, he ar­gued, can­not be de­fined by pre­mi­um bands or vi­ral so­cial me­dia con­tent. Across the sea­son ex­ists a wide spec­trum of ex­pe­ri­ences, from free mas camps and com­mu­ni­ty events to all-in­clu­sive of­fer­ings.

When Car­ni­val is framed on­ly through its biggest brands, Ma­haraj warned, the qui­eter but es­sen­tial lay­ers of the ecosys­tem dis­ap­pear from view. Those lay­ers, he said, are of­ten where first-time play­ers, lo­cals, and re­turn­ing di­as­po­ra con­nect most deeply with the cul­ture.

An­dre Jef­fers, chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer at ANSA McAL, placed for­eign ex­change at the cen­tre of the dis­cus­sion. The in­flux of vis­i­tors in the fi­nal ten days be­fore Car­ni­val brings en­er­gy to the fes­ti­val, but al­so in­jects much-need­ed for­eign cur­ren­cy in­to the econ­o­my. That ben­e­fit, he cau­tioned, is in­creas­ing­ly un­der pres­sure.

Jef­fers stressed that high air­fares, lim­it­ed ac­com­mo­da­tion, and the dom­i­nance of high-priced events in on­line pro­mo­tion are mak­ing the des­ti­na­tion less ac­ces­si­ble. For re­peat vis­i­tors, the cost equa­tion is shift­ing, forc­ing choic­es be­tween Trinidad Car­ni­val and oth­er re­gion­al fes­ti­vals, or re­duc­ing vis­its to every oth­er year.

Jef­fers point­ed to so­cial me­dia as both an as­set and a risk. In­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences of­ten plan their trips based on the most vis­i­ble con­tent, which tends to high­light pre­mi­um ex­pe­ri­ences. Small­er, more af­ford­able events re­ceive less ex­po­sure, de­spite of­fer­ing strong cul­tur­al val­ue.

He ar­gued for greater seg­men­ta­tion in how Car­ni­val is mar­ket­ed abroad. If larg­er brands broad­en their port­fo­lios or part­ner with small­er events, for­eign vis­i­tors could be pre­sent­ed with cu­rat­ed, af­ford­able itin­er­aries that still de­liv­er an au­then­tic Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence. That ap­proach, he sug­gest­ed, could help pro­tect for­eign ex­change in­flows while widen­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Artiste and song­writer Mi­cal Te­ja added that while for­eign mar­kets read­i­ly pay for Caribbean cre­ativ­i­ty, lo­cal au­di­ences re­main hes­i­tant. That dis­con­nect, shaped by decades of fo­cus on oil and gas, has slowed the de­vel­op­ment of the cre­ative sec­tor as a recog­nised rev­enue gen­er­a­tor.

Mot­t­ley closed by un­der­scor­ing the scale of ac­tiv­i­ty al­ready tak­ing place. NCC events in Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah alone sup­port about 150 ven­dors, along with per­form­ers and tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters, cre­at­ing im­me­di­ate eco­nom­ic cir­cu­la­tion.

To stim­u­late the econ­o­my, she not­ed, ac­tiv­i­ty and in­vest­ment are re­quired. Car­ni­val, she ar­gued, con­tin­ues to prove it can de­liv­er both.