De­spite eas­ing geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions in the south­ern Caribbean, tour op­er­a­tors say the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son has failed to de­liv­er growth, with some re­port­ing worse per­for­mance than in 2025. In­dus­try lead­ers warn that Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to miss op­por­tu­ni­ties to po­si­tion Car­ni­val as a mar­ketable tourism prod­uct.

In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Lor­raine Pouchet told Guardian Me­dia that op­er­a­tors were not see­ing the usu­al surge in book­ings typ­i­cal­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with Car­ni­val.

“Some tour op­er­a­tors are say­ing they have less busi­ness than last year,” Pouchet said.

She ex­plained that the vis­i­tor pro­file has shift­ed from or­gan­ised groups to in­di­vid­u­als or very small par­ties, mak­ing it more chal­leng­ing for op­er­a­tors to plan and sus­tain tours.

“There is an ab­sence of groups — more in­di­vid­u­als, or per­haps two or three per­sons re­quest­ing a tour. Op­er­a­tors who pro­vide trans­port for trans­fers to and from events face a se­ri­ous chal­lenge in traf­fic, which im­pedes pro­fes­sion­al de­liv­ery of tour ser­vices,” she said.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, op­er­a­tors would see or­gan­ised groups ar­riv­ing weeks be­fore Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, stay­ing sev­er­al days af­ter mas to ex­plore lo­cal at­trac­tions. How­ev­er, Pouchet said this pat­tern has been weak­en­ing for years, large­ly be­cause Car­ni­val is not be­ing mar­ket­ed as a full tourism prod­uct.

“We don’t mar­ket it as part of a tourism prod­uct, just as Car­ni­val. We were get­ting some trac­tion when we pro­mot­ed tours be­fore Car­ni­val week. But most vis­i­tors now fly in Wednes­day or Thurs­day be­fore Car­ni­val and leave on Ash Wednes­day or the Thurs­day af­ter,” she said.

The de­cline in de­mand has been com­pound­ed by un­cer­tain­ty over re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Op­er­a­tors re­port­ed can­cel­la­tions dur­ing pe­ri­ods of height­ened geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sion be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela.

“It af­fect­ed all of us be­cause peo­ple were hes­i­tant. They wait­ed to con­firm book­ings, watch­ing the news, and then of­ten changed their minds. No one wants to trav­el in­to a volatile area,” Pouchet said.

The weak sea­son has been felt at the op­er­a­tional lev­el. One tour op­er­a­tor de­scribed busi­ness as “very poor,” not­ing that he would nor­mal­ly be ful­ly booked in the days fol­low­ing Car­ni­val, when vis­i­tors typ­i­cal­ly ex­plore the coun­try af­ter play­ing mas.

Devin­dra Harnar­ine, own­er of Just Trip­pin, said de­mand for tours had col­lapsed com­pared with pre­vi­ous years, even though pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions re­mained un­changed.

Among the at­trac­tions vis­i­tors usu­al­ly seek are Paramin, Mara­cas Beach, Down De Is­lands, Av­o­cat Wa­ter­fall, Mar­i­anne Gorge, Paria Wa­ter­fall, Aripo Wa­ter­fall, and Rio Seco Wa­ter­fall.

“This year, I on­ly have one po­ten­tial tour for next week and one Paramin tour booked for Sat­ur­day,” Harnar­ine said.

Trans­port op­er­a­tors re­port­ed steady out­comes, with Car­ni­val nor­mal­ly gen­er­at­ing re­li­able work through air­port trans­fers and trans­port to fetes and events. Many of his usu­al clients re­turned, and he was able to meet col­leagues at air­ports and events.

Pouchet said the As­so­ci­a­tion was work­ing with the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism to im­prove in­ter­na­tion­al pro­mo­tion of the des­ti­na­tion.

Ear­li­er this week, Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj high­light­ed Car­ni­val as an im­mer­sive cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ence, though of­fi­cial vis­i­tor da­ta for the sea­son is not yet avail­able.

In­dus­try stake­hold­ers not­ed that re­peat vis­i­tors of­ten by­pass or­gan­ised tours, re­duc­ing eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits for op­er­a­tors. Tourism In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion chair­man Charles Cav­al­ho said this pat­tern lim­its Car­ni­val’s over­all val­ue to tourism busi­ness­es.

He called for stronger mar­ket­ing, ac­cess to new in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets, and an ex­pan­sion of ac­com­mo­da­tion stock. Cav­al­ho al­so said the coun­try had missed op­por­tu­ni­ties to lever­age glob­al at­ten­tion dur­ing re­cent geopo­lit­i­cal events to pro­mote Trinidad and To­ba­go as an ap­peal­ing des­ti­na­tion.—KF