T&T's Car­ni­val re­mains the gold stan­dard of Car­ni­vals across the Caribbean but much work needs to be done con­cern­ing the events' ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to tourists.

For the third year in a row, NCC chair­man Win­ston 'Gyp­sy' Pe­ters has ex­pressed se­ri­ous con­cern that T&T's Car­ni­val was falling be­hind Ja­maica's.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als who have worked in or par­tic­i­pat­ed in Ja­maica Car­ni­val, and most dis­agreed that Ja­maica's prod­uct was on the lev­el of Trinidad's cul­tur­al prod­uct.

One Amer­i­can tourist who trav­elled to var­i­ous Car­ni­vals across the Caribbean said the on­ly ad­van­tage Ja­maica had tru­ly was their ease of ac­cess to events, ac­com­mo­da­tion and tourist des­ti­na­tions or their sun, sea and sand pack­age.

Many Car­ni­val stake­hold­ers agreed that this was where T&T fell short.

"Ja­maica is a tourism-based in­dus­try so across the board, when you deal with the hos­pi­tal­i­ty, in terms of the way the staff treats peo­ple, the way the ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of trans­port and even the abil­i­ty to of­fer var­i­ous ex­pe­ri­ence, whether it is to go to Ocho Rios or the beach­es or restau­rants they have where­as we have To­ba­go which is an­oth­er is­land, it's all on the main­land in Ja­maica," said Ryan Alexan­der, bet­ter known as DJ Pri­vate Ryan, whose So­ca Brain­wash events have be­come a sta­ple across Car­ni­vals around the re­gion.

The price point, Alexan­der said, al­so gave Ja­maica an ad­van­tage.

"An­oth­er ma­jor fac­tor too is pric­ing. Trinidad now, be­cause of the de­mand of Car­ni­val, the prices of flights and ho­tels are sig­nif­i­cant­ly more than to get to Ja­maica," he said.

"For some peo­ple, Trinidad is just too ex­pen­sive, so they will go to an al­ter­nate ex­pe­ri­ence which gives them the ex­pe­ri­ence in a sim­i­lar way. So that is why he was able to say that Ja­maica is catch­ing up be­cause the re­al­i­ty is Ja­maica has grown."

PUT EM­PHA­SIS ON GLOB­AL AU­DI­ENCE

The price of our Car­ni­val has al­so be­come a con­cern for the op­er­a­tor of The Car­ni­val Con­nec­tion, a concierge ser­vice which was es­tab­lished ten years ago to fa­cil­i­tate tourists who wish to take part in our fes­tiv­i­ties.

"There are oth­er el­e­ments that con­tribute to Ja­maica 's pop­u­lar­i­ty that be­ing air­lift ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, air trav­el and they just have more rooms in gen­er­al. And the price point is a lit­tle bit bet­ter. I al­ways tell providers that we are slow­ly out­pric­ing our­selves out of the com­pe­ti­tion, and the com­pe­ti­tion is our own prod­uct," she said.

"But we're slow­ly out­pric­ing our­selves be­cause now we have so many com­pet­ing events with oth­er is­lands which are ei­ther cheap­er or more ac­ces­si­ble or have a tourism prod­uct at­tached to it."

That lack of ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty cre­at­ed her busi­ness as she re­alised that many tourists want to come to Car­ni­val but couldn't reg­is­ter on­line for some Car­ni­val bands or source tick­ets for ma­jor events.

She said while we have im­proved some­what, many tourists re­main on the out­side look­ing.

This was a con­cern Cae­sar Army's founder and CEO Jules So­bion al­so felt should be ad­dressed.

"What has hap­pened to many tourists who come in­to the coun­try, they want to par­tic­i­pate in the Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ty but a lot of these events get sold out and what hap­pens is a lot of them are put in po­si­tions that they can't par­tic­i­pate be­cause they don't have any links. So it's ei­ther TT's tim­ing and links and if you don't have the links, it puts you in a pre­car­i­ous po­si­tion," he said, stress­ing that if we aim to take Car­ni­val in­ter­na­tion­al­ly some lev­el of plan­ning for the tourism should be made.

"We need to be able to es­tab­lish the un­der­stand­ing that if your goal is to take it to the world, put an em­pha­sis on your glob­al au­di­ence. How can you fa­cil­i­tate them, how can you reach out to them to make sure that they can be part and par­cel of what you are try­ing to pro­vide be­cause ide­al­ly, for me, it is im­por­tant for me to have a glob­al au­di­ence be­ing able to reach and be a part of the com­mu­ni­ty and be a part of the event," said So­bion.

How­ev­er, stake­hold­ers al­so point­ed out the nu­mer­ous sold-out events and lim­it­ed ho­tel rooms or guest room ac­com­mo­da­tions al­so speak to the health of our Car­ni­val in terms of pop­u­lar­i­ty.

"The re­al­i­ty is this: de­mand dri­ves sup­ply, and both of those el­e­ments are con­nect­ed by one thing: mar­ketabil­i­ty. Many of the el­e­ments of the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence—for ex­am­ple, mas cos­tumes and fete tick­ets—are dri­ven by the high de­mand to be a part of those ex­pe­ri­ences," said Je­lan Cum­ber­batch of JC Man­age­ment Co Ltd, who pro­motes events in both Trinidad and Ja­maica's Car­ni­val.

DJ Pri­vate Ryan al­so not­ed that Ja­maica's Car­ni­val very much re­mained a niche mar­ket at this point, which would re­duce com­pli­ca­tions in terms of de­mand and sup­ply for events.

"If we are to con­tin­ue be­ing the mod­el Car­ni­val prod­uct that the world con­tin­ues to grav­i­tate to­wards as their tourism ex­pe­ri­ence of choice, it's im­por­tant that we fine-tune our con­sumer of­fer­ings to en­sure that our ap­peal stays ahead of the curve."

'WE ARE UN­DER­SERV­ING OUR VIS­I­TORS'

Mas de­sign­er Solange Govia al­so dis­agreed that we were pric­ing our­selves out of the mar­ket. In­stead, she ar­gued that T&T was sell­ing it­self short in terms of what could be of­fered.

"I don't think we are out­pric­ing our­selves out of the mar­ket, I think we are un­der ser­vic­ing our vis­i­tors—and that, in turn, is sub­tract­ing from the over­all val­ue that Trinidad Car­ni­val has the po­ten­tial to of­fer in­ter­na­tion­al con­sumers. We have the po­ten­tial to of­fer a sim­i­lar sun, sand and sea ex­pe­ri­ence in To­ba­go, cou­pled with an un­for­get­table Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence in Trinidad, but it all boils down to the way we mar­ket our­selves and how we want to be seen on the glob­al stage. "

She sug­gest­ed that we take a page from our neigh­bours, much like they had done in es­tab­lish­ing their own Car­ni­vals with Trinidad el­e­ments, to en­hance our prod­uct.

"In vis­it­ing oth­er is­lands, there is a high lev­el of cus­tomer ser­vice that helps to qual­i­fy the over­all ex­pe­ri­ence for vis­i­tors, and that dri­ves re­ten­tion. When peo­ple sense that they are get­ting val­ue for their hard-earned dol­lar, that is what makes tourists want to re­turn—and that, no doubt, af­fects every sin­gle in­dus­try.

"It's our col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to look at the big­ger pic­ture of how we can make Trinidad Car­ni­val a unique cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ence that has a place and space for every­one."

Cum­ber­batch agreed, "If we are to con­tin­ue be­ing the mod­el Car­ni­val prod­uct that the world con­tin­ues to grav­i­tate to­wards as their tourism ex­pe­ri­ence of choice, it's im­por­tant that we fine-tune our con­sumer of­fer­ings to en­sure that our ap­peal stays ahead of the curve."