ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

With just weeks to go be­fore To­ba­go’s Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val, band­lead­ers are grow­ing anx­ious, as no bud­get has been an­nounced for the event.

To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val will be host­ed from Oc­to­ber 25-27.

Yes­ter­day, the pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val As­so­ci­a­tion (TO­CA), Dex­ter Sandy, said de­spite promis­ing reg­is­tra­tion num­bers, band­lead­ers are wor­ried that the ab­sence of clear fi­nan­cial sup­port and stronger pro­mo­tion could hin­der the event’s suc­cess.

“To date, we have 32 J’Ou­vert bands and they are es­ti­mat­ing 3,300 mas­quer­aders have been reg­is­tered. Fif­teen night mas bands with 1,200 mas­quer­aders, 21 mas bands with just over 2,200 mas­quer­aders have reg­is­tered,” Sandy said.

While par­tic­i­pa­tion is up, Sandy is con­cerned about the lack of an an­nounce­ment of a bud­get from the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

“It’s con­cern­ing that to date we don’t have an an­nounced bud­get by the THA, even though we’ve had meet­ings with them, and they’ve giv­en some in­di­ca­tions that prepa­ra­tions are un­der­way. As a cit­i­zen, you would want to know what def­i­nite­ly would be the bud­get,” he added.

He al­so claimed that mar­ket­ing ef­forts, though on­go­ing, have been lim­it­ed.

He lament­ed that fi­nan­cial sup­port for the bands al­so re­mains un­clear, with no firm com­mit­ments made by the THA. Sandy point­ed out that al­though the To­ba­go Car­ni­val is pri­vate sec­tor-dri­ven, band­lead­ers would like to see some form of di­rect sup­port from the is­land’s gov­ern­ment.

“We have all spent in ex­cess of $2 mil­lion and as a ma­jor in­vest­ment com­ing from the bands to­wards the Car­ni­val. We would def­i­nite­ly like to hear from THA ...what is the ex­pect­ed...the mon­ey that is go­ing to be spent?”

Sandy, how­ev­er, re­mains op­ti­mistic.

He said most bands are 50 per cent sold out and he ex­pects all cos­tumes will be gone be­fore the event.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Tourism Sec­re­tary Tashia Bur­ris ex­plained that the Car­ni­val bud­get funds would be dis­bursed by the end of Oc­to­ber.

“The fi­nan­cial year ends on Sep­tem­ber 30 and starts in Oc­to­ber, so the first re­leas­es of funds for the new year will come dur­ing Oc­to­ber. We haven’t re­ceived those yet,” Bur­ris said.

How­ev­er, she is con­fi­dent that prepa­ra­tions for To­ba­go Car­ni­val are go­ing well, de­spite some con­cerns raised about the bud­get.

“Our plans are com­ing along well,” Bur­ris said.

“We’ve been mar­ket­ing the event since last No­vem­ber, start­ing at the World Trav­el Mar­ket, and we’ve pro­mot­ed it in var­i­ous places, call­ing it the ‘great­est last car­ni­val of the year.’ Now, since Au­gust, we’ve shift­ed to lo­cal mar­ket­ing, in­clud­ing a To­ba­go-brand­ed bus trav­el­ling around Trinidad to get peo­ple ex­cit­ed.”

Ac­cord­ing to Bur­ris, Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties be­gin this week.

“This Wednes­day, we’re host­ing the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion as one of our first ma­jor events. And there are oth­er events hap­pen­ing across the is­land.”

Bur­ris dis­missed the com­plaints as “mis­chief” adding, “Every­one knows where to get in­for­ma­tion about To­ba­go Car­ni­val and who to talk to.”

The THA Sec­re­tary said so far, the re­sponse to To­ba­go Car­ni­val has been pos­i­tive.

“From all in­di­ca­tions, every­thing that could bring peo­ple to To­ba­go—whether by boat or plane—has been sold out. We’re ex­pect­ing a huge crowd from both Trinidad and fur­ther abroad.”

Ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy en­cour­ag­ing

Mean­while, medi­um and small­er ho­tels are see­ing around 80 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy but own­ers fear that can­cel­la­tions may hap­pen due to is­sues to get to the is­land.

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­pha Lorde said, “One mem­ber in par­tic­u­lar said he lost 100 rooms with one group be­cause they couldn’t get a flight. I’m sure some­one will call last minute and re­book them but you don’t want to be three weeks out spec­u­lat­ing what your busi­ness would look like for a week­end like that.”

He said the larg­er ho­tels are see­ing 35 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy.

“We are not re­al­ly see­ing can­cel­la­tions. What we are see­ing is most of the small­er prop­er­ties are full or 85 per cent or high­er. But the larg­er prop­er­ties that have 80, 70 rooms, I’m not see­ing the oc­cu­pan­cy at that lev­el to say that they are at 50-60 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy.

“When we dis­ag­gre­gate it, the medi­um size prop­er­ties are at 65 per cent, the small prop­er­ties are at 85 per cent but the large prop­er­ties are still some­where is the 35 to 50 oc­cu­pan­cy rate.”

He feels ad­di­tion­al flights could add to oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els.