Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell yes­ter­day called on mas bands to pro­duce the ev­i­dence show­ing that crime and the high costs as­so­ci­at­ed with par­tic­i­pat­ing in Car­ni­val are ma­jor de­ter­rents to for­eign­ers.

Speak­ing on Tues­day with Guardian Me­dia, large bands such as Tribe, Yu­ma and Ron­nie and Caro ex­pressed con­cerns that this coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al im­age when it comes to crime, along with what they called the high cost of air­fare and ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion, was dis­cour­ag­ing and pric­ing mas­quer­aders away from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Asked for his per­spec­tive about the im­pact of crime yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Mitchell said, “What ev­i­dence did the bands use to sup­port the con­tention that crime was a def­i­nite fac­tor in the re­duc­tion in reg­is­tra­tion?”

Both Tribe and Yu­ma ex­plained that there had been a slight dip in reg­is­tra­tion. Yu­ma said they were ex­pect­ing a small de­crease fol­low­ing last year’s “Moth­er of all Car­ni­vals” while Tribe an­nounced a ten per cent de­cline in reg­is­tra­tion.

Min­is­ter Mitchell posit­ed his own rea­son for their low­er num­bers.

“Al­low me to spec­u­late that the ten per cent “dip” may very well be due to the emer­gence of new bands such as Spir­it Mas and oth­ers that al­so re­port be­ing sold out,” he said.

He al­so pos­tu­lat­ed that the State did not try to con­trol the me­dia’s nar­ra­tive on crime and that too could con­tribute to the neg­a­tive in­ter­na­tion­al im­age and the per­cep­tion that oth­er is­lands in the Caribbean were ex­plic­it­ly safer.

“Un­like those coun­tries for which tourism is their main source of rev­enue and con­trib­u­tor to GDP, there is no sup­pres­sion of the re­port­ing of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty in this coun­try’s me­dia pub­li­ca­tions with unedit­ed and grue­some de­tails which in­cludes pho­tographs in the high­lights.

“You will find sup­pressed any mat­ter that has the po­ten­tial to cause blem­ish to those coun­tries whose economies are tourism based,” Mitchell stat­ed.

He added, “This (crime) is a re­gion wide phe­nom­e­non oc­cur­ring at en­dem­ic lev­els and in recog­ni­tion of this grave prob­lem be­ing faced by the Caribbean. Cari­com re­cent­ly sum­moned a meet­ing held right here in Port-of-Spain to ad­dress this very se­ri­ous is­sue.

“The meet­ing was at­tend­ed by the heads of Cari­com in­clud­ing Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines ... coun­tries ex­plored the ad­verse im­pacts and fall­out from ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty.”

The min­is­ter said that Trinidad Car­ni­val was al­ways rel­a­tive­ly safe with­in the con­text of the num­ber of peo­ple in the coun­try at that time.

“Trinidad Car­ni­val has been very safe as far as my mem­o­ry takes me back with min­i­mal in­ci­dents of crime for which cred­it must be giv­en to the po­lice and the pro­tec­tive ser­vices hav­ing re­gard to it be­ing the largest fes­ti­val in the re­gion with tens of thou­sands of rev­ellers and par­ty go­ers at any point dur­ing the pe­ri­od,” Mitchell said.

Con­cern­ing the high costs as­so­ci­at­ed with Car­ni­val, Ron­nie McIn­tosh of Ron­nie and Caro had told Guardian Me­dia that the air­fare and ac­com­mo­da­tion costs were pric­ing peo­ple out of choos­ing des­ti­na­tion T&T.

But Mitchell said, “We (the State) are not pric­ing any­thing. In this free mar­ket sce­nario, bands, air­lines, and ho­tels are all in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ties. Bands are free to price their of­fer­ings, air­lines price their flights, and ho­tels price their rooms all guid­ed by eco­nom­ic fac­tors such as the ba­sic de­mand and sup­ply. Dur­ing the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od, de­mand out­strips sup­ply.”