Keron Rose

Car­ni­val week rep­re­sents one of the most in­tense and com­pressed eco­nom­ic pe­ri­ods in T&T’s cal­en­dar. In a mat­ter of days, tens of thou­sands of vis­i­tors ar­rive, spend­ing at a pace that far ex­ceeds a nor­mal busi­ness cy­cle. For lo­cal busi­ness­es, Car­ni­val is not just a cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tion — it is a short, high-ve­loc­i­ty com­mer­cial win­dow.

The spend­ing is al­ready hap­pen­ing. The re­al ques­tion is which busi­ness­es are po­si­tioned to cap­ture it.

In 2026, that ad­van­tage is no longer de­fined by store­front size, prime lo­ca­tion, or ad­ver­tis­ing bud­get. It is de­fined by dig­i­tal readi­ness — how eas­i­ly vis­i­tors can find your busi­ness, pay you, and in­ter­act with you once they ar­rive.

Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures re­leased by the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, Car­ni­val 2025 gen­er­at­ed an es­ti­mat­ed $668 mil­lion in vis­i­tor spend­ing be­tween mid-Feb­ru­ary and ear­ly March, an in­crease over the pre­vi­ous year. Ex­it sur­veys con­duct­ed by Tourism Trinidad Ltd showed that air vis­i­tors spent an av­er­age of $15,336 per per­son, with over 41,000 air ar­rivals record­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od. Cruise pas­sen­gers al­so con­tributed tens of mil­lions of dol­lars through food, trans­porta­tion, and lo­cal ser­vices.

That mon­ey, how­ev­er, does not spread even­ly. It flows to­ward busi­ness­es that are eas­i­est to find, eas­i­est to trans­act with and eas­i­est to trust — es­pe­cial­ly for for­eign vis­i­tors un­fa­mil­iar with the lo­cal en­vi­ron­ment.

Car­ni­val vis­i­tors make de­ci­sions quick­ly. They search on their phones, check maps, fol­low rec­om­men­da­tions from AI tools, and pay on the move. In that en­vi­ron­ment, even small dig­i­tal gaps lead to lost sales.

A busi­ness that does not ap­pear on Maps, on­ly ac­cepts cash, or has in­cor­rect in­for­ma­tion on­line in­tro­duces hes­i­ta­tion. Dur­ing Car­ni­val week, hes­i­ta­tion al­most al­ways re­sults in the vis­i­tor choos­ing a com­peti­tor in­stead.

This is why dig­i­tal prepa­ra­tion mat­ters — so I’ve made a prac­ti­cal guide to help you get your busi­ness ready.

Five dig­i­tal quick wins every busi­ness should check now:

1. Dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty: Search,

maps and AI vis­i­bil­i­ty

For­eign vis­i­tors re­ly heav­i­ly on Google, Ap­ple Maps, and AI-pow­ered as­sis­tants to find busi­ness­es. Every busi­ness should en­sure it is set up on: Google Busi­ness; Ap­ple Busi­ness Con­nect and Bing Places. These plat­forms pow­er Google Search, Google Maps, Ap­ple Maps, in-car nav­i­ga­tion sys­tems, and AI rec­om­men­da­tions.

Busi­ness own­ers should ver­i­fy:

• Cor­rect lo­ca­tion pin;

• Ac­cu­rate phone or What­sApp num­ber;

• Car­ni­val-week open­ing hours;

• Pho­tos that re­flect the cur­rent set­up.

Busi­ness­es with­out phys­i­cal store­fronts should de­fine a ser­vice area so they still ap­pear in rel­e­vant search­es. If vis­i­tors can­not find your busi­ness dig­i­tal­ly, they are un­like­ly to find it at all.

If you al­ready have these set up, make sure you re­view all of your in­for­ma­tion to en­sure it is cor­rect. Far too many times do we Google a busi­ness, call it and the wrong num­ber is list­ed, or worse, your lo­ca­tion is in­cor­rect and we have now wast­ed gas and our time to get to the wrong lo­ca­tion.

2. Pay­ments: Re­duce

cash de­pen­den­cy

For­eign vis­i­tors gen­er­al­ly do not want to use lo­cal cur­ren­cy. ATMs are un­re­li­able dur­ing Car­ni­val, and car­ry­ing cash in crowd­ed en­vi­ron­ments is a safe­ty con­cern. Busi­ness­es that are cash-on­ly lose sales — of­ten with­out re­al­is­ing it. Every busi­ness should aim to of­fer mul­ti­ple dig­i­tal pay­ment op­tions, in­clud­ing:

Al­lows busi­ness­es to ac­cept card pay­ments di­rect­ly on a smart­phone. An­droid de­vices with NFC can ac­cept tap-to-pay from Visa, Mas­ter­card, phones, and smart­watch­es. iOs can scan QR codes.

A lo­cal dig­i­tal wal­let that re­duces re­liance on cash.

Use­ful as a fall­back for in­ter­na­tion­al trans­fers or cus­tomers who al­ready have funds stored on­line.

Of­fers na­tion­wide agents, al­low­ing cus­tomers to pay in cash re­mote­ly and have funds trans­ferred dig­i­tal­ly to the busi­ness.

The goal is flex­i­bil­i­ty. When one method fails, an­oth­er keeps the sale alive.

3. So­cial pres­ence: At least ex­ist

Car­ni­val is where many vis­i­tors first en­counter lo­cal busi­ness­es — at fetes, road­side ven­dors, pop-ups, and mar­kets. When they like some­thing, their next in­stinct is to fol­low the brand:

Busi­ness­es that are “What­sApp on­ly” lose that op­por­tu­ni­ty;

At min­i­mum, busi­ness­es should have:

An In­sta­gram or Face­book page

Clear pho­tos of prod­ucts or ser­vices

Ac­cu­rate con­tact de­tails

Lo­ca­tion or ser­vice area in­for­ma­tion

Don’t wor­ry about a con­tent strat­e­gy right now. This is about cred­i­bil­i­ty and vis­i­bil­i­ty. If peo­ple can­not find or fol­low you on­line, the re­la­tion­ship ends im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the sale.

4. On-de­mand plat­forms: Meet mod­ern buy­ing be­hav­iour

Vis­i­tor be­hav­iour has changed. Af­ter long nights and heavy traf­fic, many vis­i­tors pre­fer to or­der food or prod­ucts di­rect­ly to where they are stay­ing.

Food busi­ness­es should en­sure they are reg­is­tered on food­DROP, which many vis­i­tors al­ready use. Some prod­uct-based busi­ness­es can al­so reg­is­ter, ex­pand­ing their reach be­yond walk-in traf­fic.

If your busi­ness is not avail­able on plat­forms vis­i­tors al­ready use, you are in­vis­i­ble dur­ing key spend­ing mo­ments.

5. One cen­tral dig­i­tal hub

With vis­i­tors switch­ing be­tween apps and group chats, scat­tered in­for­ma­tion caus­es con­fu­sion. Every busi­ness should have one cen­tral link that con­nects every­thing.

Tools like Link­tree al­low busi­ness­es to house:

So­cial me­dia links

What­sApp con­tact

Google Maps lo­ca­tion

De­liv­ery links

Menus or cat­a­logues

For busi­ness­es with­out web­sites, a sim­ple dig­i­tal cat­a­logue can be cre­at­ed in Can­va—a short slide deck with prod­uct pho­tos, de­scrip­tions and prices—and linked di­rect­ly.

This be­comes a sin­gle source of truth dur­ing Car­ni­val week.

Car­ni­val week re­wards busi­ness­es that re­move fric­tion. Dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty, pay­ments, so­cial pres­ence, on-de­mand ac­cess, and one cen­tral dig­i­tal hub are not ad­vanced strate­gies — they are dig­i­tal fun­da­men­tals in 2026.

Busi­ness­es that fail to ad­dress these ar­eas will lose sales to com­peti­tors that do, re­gard­less of prod­uct qual­i­ty. Those who pre­pare dig­i­tal­ly place them­selves di­rect­ly in the path of vis­i­tor spend­ing.

The mon­ey is al­ready here. Be­ing ready de­ter­mines who cap­tures it.

Keron Rose is a Caribbean-based dig­i­tal strate­gist and dig­i­tal no­mad cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Thai­land. He helps en­tre­pre­neurs across the re­gion build their dig­i­tal pres­ence, mon­e­tise their plat­forms, and tap in­to glob­al op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Con­tact him at in­fo@keron­rose.com