By TTC­SI Sec­re­tari­at

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion agen­da should place greater em­pha­sis on an as­set al­ready with­in reach, its ex­ist­ing event in­fra­struc­ture. To­ba­go’s beach­es and nat­ur­al at­trac­tions re­main cen­tral to the coun­try’s tourism ap­peal, while Trinidad’s per­for­mance venues and pro­duc­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties of­fer scope to at­tract vis­i­tors through a more de­lib­er­ate pro­gramme of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al events.

The Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA), and oth­er pub­lic fa­cil­i­ties rep­re­sent sub­stan­tial na­tion­al in­vest­ment. Their val­ue de­pends on how ef­fec­tive­ly they serve com­mu­ni­ties and sup­port eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty. Un­der­used spaces and de­ferred main­te­nance re­duce the re­turn on that in­vest­ment and lim­it fu­ture op­por­tu­ni­ties.

A use­ful start­ing point would be a na­tion­al as­sess­ment of venue con­di­tion, book­ing lev­els and tech­ni­cal ca­pac­i­ty. This would iden­ti­fy spaces ready for ad­di­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ty and those need­ing tar­get­ed re­pairs. De­ci­sions about fu­ture in­vest­ment could then re­flect re­al­is­tic op­por­tu­ni­ties to in­crease use and im­prove ser­vice.

The Caribbean Mu­sic Awards pro­vid­ed a re­cent il­lus­tra­tion of what is pos­si­ble. The cer­e­mo­ny was held at NA­PA in Port-of-Spain on 19 Sep­tem­ber 19, 2026, with its glob­al broad­cast pre­mière fol­low­ing on Oc­to­ber 25. It demon­strat­ed the role an ex­ist­ing venue can play in host­ing a re­gion­al cul­tur­al oc­ca­sion with in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­bil­i­ty.

Ex­pe­ri­ences else­where of­fer use­ful mod­els. In Bar­ba­dos, Ani­meKon brings to­geth­er cos­play, es­ports, film and oth­er cre­ative ac­tiv­i­ties with­in a pop-cul­ture con­ven­tion. Its for­mat sug­gests an op­por­tu­ni­ty for T&T to com­bine gam­ing, an­i­ma­tion, lo­cal il­lus­tra­tors and cul­tur­al show­cas­es in an event ap­peal­ing to sev­er­al re­lat­ed au­di­ences. Such pro­gram­ming could give re­gion­al vis­i­tors mul­ti­ple rea­sons to make the trip.

The Evo­lu­tion Cham­pi­onship Se­ries, known as Evo, pro­vides an in­ter­na­tion­al es­ports ex­am­ple. Its or­gan­is­ers record­ed 10,240 in­di­vid­ual play­ers at the 2024 Las Ve­gas event. A Caribbean cham­pi­onship de­vel­oped at an ap­pro­pri­ate scale could draw on its mod­el of com­pet­i­tive gam­ing and com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion, with scope for ex­hi­bi­tions, live en­ter­tain­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal cre­ators.

The St Lu­cia Jazz & Arts Fes­ti­val of­fers a fur­ther re­gion­al com­par­i­son. The St Lu­cia Tourism Au­thor­i­ty re­port­ed record in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tor num­bers for its 2025 edi­tion. That ex­pe­ri­ence sup­ports the case for de­vel­op­ing recog­nis­able cul­tur­al events around which peo­ple can plan trav­el. A co­or­di­nat­ed pro­gramme of mu­sic, dance and the­atre across suit­able lo­cal venues could strength­en Trinidad’s own cal­en­dar.

These ex­am­ples sug­gest sev­er­al di­rec­tions for de­vel­op­ment, each re­quir­ing an as­sess­ment of de­mand, costs and venue suit­abil­i­ty. Es­tab­lish­ing a few well-man­aged re­gion­al events would pro­vide a prac­ti­cal foun­da­tion for pur­su­ing se­lect­ed in­ter­na­tion­al book­ings. Con­sis­ten­cy would help build con­fi­dence among au­di­ences, spon­sors and over­seas part­ners.

Lo­cal tal­ent is cen­tral to this op­por­tu­ni­ty. T&T has per­form­ers ca­pa­ble of car­ry­ing ma­jor pro­duc­tions, along­side sound en­gi­neers, sound de­sign­ers, stage de­sign­ers, light­ing tech­ni­cians and pro­duc­tion crews. Event or­gan­is­ers, pho­tog­ra­phers, video­g­ra­phers and cater­ers add fur­ther depth. To­geth­er, these ca­pa­bil­i­ties pro­vide the foun­da­tion for a com­pre­hen­sive event of­fer­ing de­liv­ered by lo­cal pro­fes­sion­als.

A stronger events in­dus­try would al­so help re­tain spe­cialised skills. Young peo­ple trained in au­dio pro­duc­tion, stage man­age­ment or dig­i­tal broad­cast­ing need op­por­tu­ni­ties to prac­tise their craft. Part­ner­ships be­tween es­tab­lished pro­fes­sion­als and train­ing in­sti­tu­tions could cre­ate su­per­vised place­ments, al­low­ing ma­jor events to con­tribute to a more ex­pe­ri­enced work­force.

In­te­grat­ing those pro­fes­sion­als in­to event plan­ning would strength­en the con­nec­tion be­tween tourism and the cre­ative econ­o­my. Vis­i­tor spend­ing could sup­port ac­com­mo­da­tion providers, restau­rants, trans­port op­er­a­tors and re­tail­ers, while pro­duc­tion con­tracts gen­er­ate work for lo­cal sup­pli­ers. More de­pend­able de­mand could al­so en­cour­age busi­ness­es to in­vest in equip­ment and train ad­di­tion­al staff.

The di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ben­e­fit ex­tends to earn­ing for­eign ex­change through ser­vices sold to over­seas vis­i­tors and or­gan­is­ers. Keep­ing a sub­stan­tial share of pro­duc­tion and pur­chas­ing with­in the coun­try would strength­en that con­tri­bu­tion. It would al­so con­nect tourism growth with busi­ness­es whose ex­per­tise could even­tu­al­ly serve events in oth­er mar­kets.

De­liv­er­ing that op­por­tu­ni­ty re­quires re­li­able fa­cil­i­ties. The 2027 Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme in­cludes planned im­prove­ments at NA­PA and SAPA in­volv­ing se­cu­ri­ty, fa­cil­i­ty up­grades and pow­er qual­i­ty. These in­vest­ments should be ac­com­pa­nied by pre­ven­tive main­te­nance, clear man­age­ment re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and tech­ni­cal as­sess­ments for each pro­posed use. Es­ports events, for ex­am­ple, re­quire de­pend­able con­nec­tiv­i­ty, suit­able equip­ment and ex­pe­ri­enced tour­na­ment staff. 6

Youth and com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties could sup­port this wider net­work through re­hearsals, train­ing, work­shops and qual­i­fy­ing com­pe­ti­tions, where ap­pro­pri­ate. Their role would ex­tend to prepar­ing young peo­ple for ca­reers in per­for­mance, pro­duc­tion and event man­age­ment. Af­ford­able com­mu­ni­ty ac­cess should re­main an ex­plic­it part of their man­age­ment.

A co­or­di­nat­ed an­nu­al cal­en­dar would help con­vert in­di­vid­ual events in­to a sus­tained tourism of­fer­ing. Ear­ly con­fir­ma­tion al­lows vis­i­tors to arrange flights and ac­com­mo­da­tion, and gives spon­sors and sup­pli­ers time to pre­pare. Sched­ul­ing suit­able events through­out the year could broad­en op­por­tu­ni­ties for vis­i­tor spend­ing be­yond the pe­ri­ods that al­ready at­tract sub­stan­tial at­ten­tion.

Co­op­er­a­tion would be es­sen­tial. Gov­ern­ment and venue man­agers can pro­vide de­pend­able spaces and trans­par­ent book­ing arrange­ments. Pri­vate or­gan­is­ers and spon­sors can de­vel­op com­mer­cial­ly cred­i­ble pro­grammes, while tourism bod­ies and busi­ness sup­port or­gan­i­sa­tions con­nect pro­mot­ers with sup­pli­ers, train­ing in­sti­tu­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al net­works. Clear re­spon­si­bil­i­ties would help turn shared am­bi­tion in­to de­liv­er­able events.

Im­ple­men­ta­tion could be­gin with a small port­fo­lio of pi­lot events se­lect­ed through clear cri­te­ria. Each should have a de­fined au­di­ence, a cred­i­ble or­gan­is­er and a fi­nanc­ing plan. Re­view­ing de­liv­ery and vis­i­tor feed­back af­ter each edi­tion would help iden­ti­fy im­prove­ments be­fore larg­er com­mit­ments are made, giv­ing a de­vel­op­ing pro­gramme room to grow re­spon­si­bly.

The ex­pe­ri­ence sur­round­ing an event al­so in­flu­ences its ap­peal. Safe trans­port, ac­ces­si­ble fa­cil­i­ties, straight­for­ward tick­et­ing and re­li­able vis­i­tor in­for­ma­tion should form part of the plan­ning. Flight avail­abil­i­ty and ac­com­mo­da­tion costs must be con­sid­ered when se­lect­ing tar­get au­di­ences. These prac­ti­cal de­tails af­fect at­ten­dance and the like­li­hood of a re­turn vis­it. Re­gion­al trav­el pack­ages com­bin­ing event ad­mis­sion, ac­com­mo­da­tion and re­li­able trans­fers could help vis­i­tors un­der­stand the to­tal cost of at­tend­ing and make their arrange­ments with greater con­fi­dence.

There is al­so po­ten­tial to con­nect both is­lands through care­ful­ly de­signed trav­el pack­ages. An event in Trinidad could be fol­lowed by a stay in To­ba­go, com­bin­ing cul­tur­al or com­pet­i­tive ac­tiv­i­ties with beach and na­ture ex­pe­ri­ences. Ef­fec­tive trans­port con­nec­tions and co­or­di­nat­ed ac­com­mo­da­tion of­fers would be nec­es­sary to make that ex­ten­sion con­ve­nient and at­trac­tive.

Suc­cess should be as­sessed through vis­i­tor ar­rivals at­trib­ut­able to events, nights stayed, lo­cal con­tracts award­ed and op­por­tu­ni­ties cre­at­ed. Pub­lic sup­port should be weighed against its cost, with re­sults in­form­ing fu­ture de­ci­sions. This would keep at­ten­tion on the wider eco­nom­ic con­tri­bu­tion and the qual­i­ty of the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence.

Mak­ing fuller use of ex­ist­ing in­fra­struc­ture of­fers a prac­ti­cal con­tri­bu­tion to di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion. With sus­tained main­te­nance, cred­i­ble pro­gram­ming and stronger co­or­di­na­tion, Trinidad and To­ba­go can con­nect its venues and tal­ent to new vis­i­tor mar­kets. The re­sult could be greater val­ue from pub­lic in­vest­ment and a more con­sis­tent source of op­por­tu­ni­ty for lo­cal busi­ness­es.