Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Bed and Break­fast and Self-Cater­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, Kaye Trot­man, says book­ings for Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val are al­ready near full ca­pac­i­ty, but the is­land con­tin­ues to face peren­ni­al chal­lenges with last-minute plan­ning and lim­it­ed air and sea trans­port.

Last year’s Car­ni­val saw 76 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy, but with bed and break­fasts al­ready 90 per cent booked, she said this year looks stronger.

“In prepa­ra­tion for the Car­ni­val sea­son, we are see­ing sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­est in terms of en­quiry,” Trot­man told Guardian Me­dia in a sit-down in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

She ex­plained that re­peat in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors have been con­sis­tent, mak­ing their reser­va­tions well in ad­vance. “In­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors that most of us have at the Bed and Break­fast As­so­ci­a­tion are re­peat cus­tomers, and we are quite grate­ful for those per­sons. They would have booked or shown in­ter­est im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the car­ni­val that they par­tic­i­pat­ed in last year, and in­ter­est in com­ing back for this year.”

How­ev­er, she men­tioned that Trinidad vis­i­tors tend to wait un­til the last minute. “Our lo­cal cus­tomers tend to book clos­er to the time of the Car­ni­val ac­tu­al­ly hap­pen­ing. And that has been a chal­lenge be­cause it means both the air­line and sea fer­ry get­ting here be­come is­sues to man­age.”

Ac­cord­ing to her, about 90 per cent of prop­er­ties are al­ready booked. “We still have rooms avail­able for those who are in­ter­est­ed and would like to do last-minute book­ings,” she said, while en­cour­ag­ing vis­i­tors to take ad­van­tage of what she de­scribed as com­pet­i­tive pric­ing.

Trot­man added that ac­com­mo­da­tion on the west­ern and south­west­ern side of the is­land is “ful­ly booked”, but To­ba­go East re­mains un­der pres­sure. “Those that may be in the coun­try ar­eas of the Char­lottesville area, the east­ern ar­eas, they are the ones that may tend to be chal­lenged for the car­ni­val sea­son, es­pe­cial­ly be­cause most peo­ple want to be near where the ac­tion is, so to speak.”

She in­sist­ed that bet­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion is need­ed. “Some­times we do need to col­lab­o­rate more close­ly with oth­er stake­hold­ers like our event pro­mot­ers and prob­a­bly oth­er tour op­er­a­tors that may be of­fer­ing pack­ages.”

But she said one of the main is­sues re­mains late plan­ning. “Even though some­times you es­tab­lish a date for Car­ni­val, the ac­tu­al lo­gis­tics and op­er­a­tion of plan­ning the car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties tend to hap­pen late in the game. So be­cause of that, it throws peo­ple off in terms of their plan­ning.”

Trot­man al­so called on Caribbean Air­lines and the Port Au­thor­i­ty to fix long-stand­ing ac­cess is­sues. “I think it’s about time that both Caribbean Air­lines and the sea­port get it right.”

She said de­spite geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions in the re­gion and trav­el ad­vi­sories, the as­so­ci­a­tion re­mains op­ti­mistic. “We have great ex­pec­ta­tions, and let’s see what turns out.”

Last year’s Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val saw the is­land ho­tels and guest­hous­es record about 76 per cent. Small­er prop­er­ties were ful­ly booked, medi­um-sized ones re­port­ed around 85 cent, while larg­er ho­tels ranged be­tween 70 and 100 per cent.

At that time, the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion said the fig­ures marked a ma­jor im­prove­ment com­pared to 2023, when larg­er ho­tels strug­gled at just 30 to 35 per cent ahead of the fes­ti­val.

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean could not be reached for com­ment.