SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

The tourism po­ten­tial of Ram­leela and Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions in cen­tral Trinidad will be ex­plored in 2026, says Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia dur­ing Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions in Fe­lic­i­ty on Mon­day evening, May­or Mo­hammed re­vealed that plans are un­der­way to mar­ket both events as ma­jor cul­tur­al at­trac­tions ca­pa­ble of draw­ing lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors to the bor­ough.

“We want to po­si­tion Ch­agua­nas as the cul­tur­al heart of cen­tral Trinidad,” Mo­hammed said. “The goal is to cre­ate a Di­vali Vil­lage that will run for five nights lead­ing up to Di­vali, fea­tur­ing tra­di­tion­al light­ing, cul­tur­al per­for­mances, food, and craft mar­kets.”

The may­or not­ed that the area hosts two long-stand­ing Ram­leela pro­duc­tions—one at the Green Park Recre­ation Ground, which has been staged for over 110 years, and an­oth­er at the Pierre Road Recre­ation Ground, con­sid­ered one of the largest in Trinidad and To­ba­go. He said that with greater col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the State and the pri­vate sec­tor, these events can be­come ma­jor cul­tur­al show­cas­es and boost tourism.

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Coun­cil­lor Sun­dar Jokoo, who rep­re­sents the Fe­lic­i­ty/En­deav­our dis­trict in the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, high­light­ed the strong com­mu­ni­ty sup­port be­hind this year’s cel­e­bra­tions. He said that ap­prox­i­mate­ly three kilo­me­tres of road­way were il­lu­mi­nat­ed with thou­sands of elec­tric bulbs at a cost ex­ceed­ing $75,000, all of which was fund­ed by the pri­vate sec­tor. Jokoo said the Di­vali light­ing will re­main on for an­oth­er week so that those who couldn’t make it ear­li­er can still come and en­joy the dis­play. Jokoo said that the ini­tia­tive has helped fos­ter civic pride and com­mu­ni­ty spir­it.

Ch­agua­nas West MP Dr Neil Col­in Go­sine de­scribed this year’s cel­e­bra­tion as the largest seen in a decade. “The turnout was phe­nom­e­nal,” Go­sine said. “These events have im­mense po­ten­tial to at­tract vis­i­tors and boost small busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty.” Tour op­er­a­tor Jesse James, who brought a group of 80 for­eign tourists to Fe­lic­i­ty for this year’s fes­tiv­i­ties, agreed that the cel­e­bra­tions were ex­cep­tion­al.

“This has been the best Di­vali and Ram­leela ex­pe­ri­ence in the last ten years,” he said. “Our vis­i­tors were amazed by the beau­ty, colour, and warmth of the com­mu­ni­ty. They tru­ly got to ex­pe­ri­ence the cul­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go.” James added that he has met with the Min­is­ter of Trade and Tourism to dis­cuss im­prove­ments to the tourism sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly in fa­cil­i­tat­ing cul­tur­al tourism. “If we can ad­dress some of the cur­rent chal­lenges,” he said, “the num­ber of tourists I bring to the area could eas­i­ly more than dou­ble by 2026.”

With com­mu­ni­ty en­thu­si­asm run­ning high and of­fi­cial plans in mo­tion, Fe­lic­i­ty and wider Ch­agua­nas are po­si­tion­ing them­selves to shine bright­ly on T&T’s cul­tur­al tourism map.