As T&T grap­ples with de­clin­ing vis­i­tor ar­rivals in the face of re­gion­al growth in tourists, T&T’s unique ap­proach to mea­sur­ing tourism sta­tis­tics is called in­to ques­tion, ac­cord­ing to tourism re­search spe­cial­ist Ak­i­lah Pro­cope.

With near­ly a decade of re­search and an­a­lyt­ics ex­pe­ri­ence, Pro­cope is well-versed in both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary re­search method­olo­gies across var­i­ous sec­tors. Her back­ground spans the cor­po­rate and re­search agency sec­tors, work­ing with pub­lic and pri­vate or­gan­i­sa­tions, as well as in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal en­ti­ties and spe­cialised Unit­ed Na­tion’s agen­cies.

Ac­cord­ing to Pro­cope, T&T’s de­ci­sion to track vis­i­tor ar­rivals by na­tion­al­i­ty rather than coun­try of res­i­dence rais­es ques­tions about its im­pact on tourism sta­tis­tics.

“We are the on­ly Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­try in the Caribbean that stands out for our de­ci­sion to mea­sure vis­i­tor ar­rivals by na­tion­al­i­ty rather than coun­try of res­i­dence.

“In a re­gion, where most coun­tries re­ly on the coun­try of res­i­dence to track vis­i­tor ar­rivals, this de­par­ture from the norm rais­es con­cerns about com­pa­ra­bil­i­ty with oth­er Caribbean na­tions,” she said.

Pro­cope added that the dif­fer­ence in mea­sure­ment cri­te­ria may hin­der ef­forts to draw mean­ing­ful con­clu­sions about re­gion­al trends and mar­ket shares, po­ten­tial­ly af­fect­ing T&T’s abil­i­ty to de­vel­op ef­fec­tive tourism strate­gies.

Fur­ther, mea­sur­ing vis­i­tor ar­rivals by na­tion­al­i­ty could re­sult in un­der­count­ing spe­cif­ic vis­i­tor seg­ments, such as Vis­it­ing Friends and Rel­a­tives (VFR) trav­ellers and those with dual cit­i­zen­ship or res­i­den­cy in mul­ti­ple coun­tries.

This may lead to an in­com­plete un­der­stand­ing of the over­all vis­i­tor land­scape, re­sult­ing in the mis­al­lo­ca­tion of re­sources in the tourism sec­tor and missed op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, fo­cus­ing on na­tion­al­i­ty might pro­vide lim­it­ed in­sights in­to trav­el be­hav­iour and pref­er­ences, which are of­ten more close­ly linked to the coun­try of res­i­dence.

Pro­cope said this could im­pact T&T’s abil­i­ty to tai­lor mar­ket­ing cam­paigns and tourism of­fer­ings to the spe­cif­ic needs of dif­fer­ent vis­i­tor seg­ments.

She said de­spite the on­go­ing de­bate sur­round­ing the mea­sure­ment of vis­i­tor ar­rivals by na­tion­al­i­ty, calls for a hy­brid ap­proach that con­sid­ers both na­tion­al­i­ty and coun­try of res­i­dence have yet to gain sig­nif­i­cant trac­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Pro­cope said if such a method were adopt­ed, it could pro­vide a more com­pre­hen­sive un­der­stand­ing of the vis­i­tor land­scape, fa­cil­i­tate bet­ter com­par­isons with oth­er coun­tries in the re­gion, and ul­ti­mate­ly con­tribute to more ef­fec­tive de­ci­sion-mak­ing in the tourism sec­tor.

De­clin­ing ar­rivals

She told the Busi­ness Guardian that while T&T na­tion­als in­creas­ing­ly trav­el abroad, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the US, in­bound tourism has strug­gled.

“The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic ex­posed the fragili­ty of the lo­cal tourism sec­tor, but re­cov­ery is on the hori­zon. Mean­while, the de­bate over mea­sur­ing vis­i­tor ar­rivals by na­tion­al­i­ty rather than coun­try of res­i­dence rais­es con­cerns about da­ta com­pa­ra­bil­i­ty and the po­ten­tial for un­der­count­ing spe­cif­ic vis­i­tor seg­ments,” Pro­cope whose in­dus­try ex­pe­ri­ence spans mar­ket­ing, au­to­mo­tive, bank­ing, tourism and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ex­plained.

She not­ed that T&T ex­pe­ri­enced con­sec­u­tive de­clines in an­nu­al vis­i­tor ar­rivals in the five years pre­ced­ing the na­tion­al bor­der clo­sure, ex­cept for 2019.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO), the coun­try’s five-year an­nu­al av­er­age vis­i­tor ar­rivals, be­fore COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in 2020, stood at 401,695, while the av­er­age in the three years be­fore the pan­dem­ic dropped to 386,237.

When com­par­ing vis­i­tor ar­rivals in 2019 with those of 2015, a 11.6 per cent de­crease is not­ed.

Con­trast­ing­ly, Pro­cope said the World and the Caribbean re­gion en­joyed a five per cent and three per cent av­er­age an­nu­al growth rate in vis­i­tor ar­rivals re­spec­tive­ly in the five years lead­ing up to the pan­dem­ic, as re­port­ed by the 2022 UN World Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion (UNWTO), World Barom­e­ter Re­port.

“This dis­crep­an­cy be­tween T&T’s de­clin­ing num­bers and the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al up­swing rais­es ques­tions about the fac­tors con­tribut­ing to the coun­try’s tourism strug­gles.

“De­spite the dip in ar­rivals, tourism earn­ings in Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mained sig­nif­i­cant in the years lead­ing up to the pan­dem­ic. On av­er­age, vis­i­tors spent TT$566 per day and stayed for 13 days. In­ter­est­ing­ly, in the last year be­fore the pan­dem­ic, per-vis­i­tor ex­pen­di­ture de­creased to TT$502 per day, while the av­er­age length of stay in­creased to 14 days,” Pro­cope fur­ther ex­plained.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she said in the year af­ter the end of the COVID-19 re­stric­tions, the tourism in­dus­try ex­pe­ri­enced an un­even re­cov­ery.

Pro­cope added that vis­i­tor ar­rivals, plum­met­ed from 95,280 in 2020 to a mere 40,621 in 2021, high­light­ing the im­mense im­pact of the pan­dem­ic on the coun­try’s tourism sec­tor.

How­ev­er, she not­ed last year brought a glim­mer of hope as vis­i­tor ar­rivals re­bound­ed to 226,489, and the first quar­ter of 2023 reg­is­tered 81,762 vis­i­tors sig­nalling that the in­dus­try is re­gain­ing its foot­ing.

Shift­ing dy­nam­ics

Ac­cord­ing to Pro­cope, the in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el land­scape in T&T has wit­nessed an “in­trigu­ing tug-of-war” be­tween de­par­tures of T&T na­tion­als and vis­i­tor ar­rivals from in­ter­na­tion­al coun­tries be­tween 2015 and 2022.

She said analy­sis of the trav­el sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed on the CSO’s web­site un­veils the “hid­den sto­ries” be­hind fluc­tu­at­ing num­bers and the im­pact of glob­al events on trav­el trends.

Pro­cope said from 2015 to 2019, de­par­tures of T&T na­tion­als to over­seas des­ti­na­tions ex­pe­ri­enced con­sis­tent growth. How­ev­er, dur­ing this same pe­ri­od, T&T faced a con­sis­tent de­cline in vis­i­tor ar­rivals ex­cept for the year 2019 when a three per cent year-on-year growth was record­ed.

“The con­trast be­tween out­bound and in­bound trav­el trends cul­mi­nat­ed in a net loss, with sig­nif­i­cant­ly more T&T na­tion­als trav­el­ling abroad than tourists vis­it­ing the coun­try. The largest gap oc­curred in 2019, with a stag­ger­ing net dif­fer­ence of 99,094 trav­ellers,” she ex­plained.

How­ev­er, Pro­cope said the on­set of COVID-19 in 2020 proved to be a game-chang­er, caus­ing a dra­mat­ic nose­dive in both de­par­tures and ar­rivals.

As glob­al trav­el came to a stand­still, the net dif­fer­ence be­tween in­bound and out­bound trav­el flipped pri­mar­i­ly due to Car­ni­val which oc­curred just be­fore the bor­der clo­sure an­nounce­ment, re­sult­ing in a pos­i­tive bal­ance of 14,086 trav­ellers in favour of tourist ar­rivals.

Pro­cope ex­plained that in 2021, the trav­el in­dus­try re­mained sub­dued, but T&T na­tion­al’s out­bound trav­el out­paced that of vis­i­tor ar­rivals to T&T by 23,544.

“As the world be­gan to emerge from the pan­dem­ic in 2022, both de­par­tures of T&T na­tion­als and tourist ar­rivals soared, mark­ing a re­mark­able re­cov­ery.

The gap be­tween in­bound and out­bound trav­el per­sist­ed, with more T&T na­tion­als de­part­ing Trinidad than tourist ar­rivals by some 36,659 trav­ellers,” she fur­ther ex­plained.

Month-by-month trav­el pat­terns

As Pro­cope delved in­to the in­trigu­ing pat­terns, some months stand out as par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar for de­par­tures of T&T na­tion­als.

She not­ed Ju­ly, Au­gust, and De­cem­ber con­sis­tent­ly saw the high­est num­bers of res­i­dents ven­tur­ing abroad, adding that these months co­in­cide with sum­mer va­ca­tions and the Christ­mas hol­i­day sea­son.

In con­trast, the months of Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary wit­nessed the low­est num­bers of T&T na­tion­als de­part­ing for in­ter­na­tion­al coun­tries which could be at­trib­uted to in­di­vid­ual’s pref­er­ence to stay home for the Car­ni­val sea­son or cold weath­er in pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions dur­ing these months.

When ex­am­in­ing vis­i­tor ar­rivals to T&T, Pro­cope al­so not­ed that the da­ta re­vealed a dif­fer­ent sto­ry.

She said Au­gust emerges as the peak month for tourist ar­rivals, with con­sis­tent­ly high num­bers across the years, adding that trav­el pat­terns among T&T na­tion­als re­vealed that the US re­mains a pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion, with US trips ac­count­ing for rough­ly four in 10 of all in­ter­na­tion­al de­par­tures by T&T na­tion­als be­tween 2015 and 2021.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, this trend per­sists even as over­all de­par­tures have fluc­tu­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the years, she added.

Ac­cord­ing to the US In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s SIAT In­bound Sur­vey Mon­i­tor’s 2019 da­ta on the so­cio-eco­nom­ic back­ground of T&T vis­i­tors to the US, rough­ly 70 per cent of T&T vis­i­tors to the US have a house­hold in­come of no more than TT$22,670 month­ly. When it comes to the pur­pose of trav­el, 58 per cent of T&T na­tion­als vis­it the US for va­ca­tions or hol­i­days, com­pared to 23 per cent for vis­it­ing friends and rel­a­tives (VFR) and sev­en per cent for busi­ness.

While in the US, T&T vis­i­tors pri­ori­tise leisure ac­tiv­i­ties, with 89 per cent en­gag­ing in shop­ping, 56 per cent opt­ing for sight­see­ing, and 30 per cent in­dulging in fine din­ing ex­pe­ri­ences.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, ac­com­mo­da­tion pref­er­ences vary, with 51 per cent choos­ing to stay in ho­tels or mo­tels and 56 per cent stay­ing at pri­vate homes. The fig­ures in­di­cate that T&T na­tion­als stay in both ho­tels or mo­tels and at pri­vate homes dur­ing trips to the US.

Ho­tel stays typ­i­cal­ly last one week, while vis­its to pri­vate homes ex­tend to an av­er­age of two weeks.