This long Car­ni­val week­end, cul­mi­nat­ing with the Pa­rade of the Bands on Mon­day and Tues­day, is al­so the cli­max of T&T’s tourism sea­son—a too-brief pe­ri­od when there is a surge in vis­i­tor ar­rivals and ex­pen­di­ture.

For a few days, packed flights from across the Caribbean, North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope will bring in re­turn­ing na­tion­als and for­eign vis­i­tors to ex­pe­ri­ence “the Great­est Show on Earth.” Ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy will be close to ca­pac­i­ty and many of the pre-Car­ni­val events around the coun­try will be well pa­tro­n­ised.

Based on the cur­rent sights and sounds, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the vicin­i­ty of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, the Mec­ca of Car­ni­val and the main stage for the ma­jor com­pe­ti­tions over the next four days, it might be tempt­ing to de­clare this 2024 edi­tion a suc­cess.

The truth is, how­ev­er, that the full po­ten­tial of T&T Car­ni­val has not yet been re­alised and tourism con­tin­ues to be one of this coun­try’s un­der-per­form­ing sec­tors.

For all of its rich cul­ture and his­to­ry and its in­flu­ence over the many West In­di­an-style car­ni­vals it has spawned around the world, the true val­ue of the fes­ti­val re­mains a mys­tery.

There is not a sin­gle head­ing in the vo­lu­mi­nous Bud­get doc­u­ments pro­duced an­nu­al­ly by the Min­istry of Fi­nance that ac­cu­rate­ly re­flects the re­al rev­enue and ex­pen­di­ture on T&T Car­ni­val. Not even the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), which re­lies on an al­lo­ca­tion from the state to pro­duce its var­i­ous shows and com­pe­ti­tions, can give a true dol­lar val­ue for the fes­tiv­i­ties cur­rent­ly tak­ing place.

Very out­dat­ed pre-pan­dem­ic sta­tis­tics put the rev­enue gen­er­at­ed dur­ing this brief pe­ri­od at US$100,000, with the av­er­age Car­ni­val vis­i­tor spend­ing an av­er­age of $12,101 over ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 days.

So while it is gen­er­al­ly ac­knowl­edged that Car­ni­val as an in­dus­try and eco­nom­ic gen­er­a­tor has po­ten­tial that goes well be­yond Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, no re­al ef­fort has yet been made to mea­sure and de­vel­op that po­ten­tial.

Mean­while, many coun­tries that de­vel­oped their fes­ti­vals us­ing as­pects of T&T Car­ni­val have made con­sid­er­ably more progress in the brand­ing and mar­ket­ing of their events and are reap­ing eco­nom­ic re­wards.

The ab­sence of se­ri­ous stud­ies and gath­er­ing of da­ta on our pre-Lenten “farewell to the flesh” cel­e­bra­tions can be blamed on suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments that have been un­will­ing, or un­able, to wean this na­tion from its de­pen­dence on oil and gas.

As a re­sult, while many of the cre­ative el­e­ments of the Car­ni­val have evolved over the years, there con­tin­ues to be a fail­ure to har­ness the full val­ue of the fes­ti­val.

Not on­ly is Car­ni­val sea­son a prime pe­ri­od for tourist ar­rivals and a sig­nif­i­cant earn­er of much-need­ed for­eign ex­change, but it al­so gen­er­ates eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty across sev­er­al sec­tors that pro­duce a range of cul­tur­al prod­ucts and ser­vices.

There is sea­son­al em­ploy­ment for event co­or­di­na­tors, de­sign­ers, cos­tume mak­ers, make-up artists, cater­ers, se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel, disc jock­eys and oth­er ser­vice providers, in ad­di­tion to year-round in­come po­ten­tial for those whose ex­per­tise is in de­mand for car­ni­vals in oth­er coun­tries.

More en­er­gy thus needs to be fo­cused on mak­ing T&T Car­ni­val a pre­mier tourist at­trac­tion dis­tinc­tive from oth­er sim­i­lar fes­ti­vals. That means do­ing stud­ies, gath­er­ing com­pre­hen­sive da­ta, find­ing ways to boost in­vest­ments in the sec­tor and work­ing hard­er and bet­ter to im­prove all as­pects of the event.

De­vel­op­ing year-round Car­ni­val at­trac­tions and events should al­so be se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­ered in this, the birth­place of this colour­ful, high-en­er­gy cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za.