220,000 Carnival Visitors To Land In T&T

One Band In Port Of Spain

Numbers Never Lie, People Do

 

Online research on the number of visitors to Trinidad and Tobago for the carnival season bought some interesting realities.   

As natives, we call it “plenty people” “people like peas” not ever taking time to figure out exactly how many people are really attracted to the Carnival celebrations.   

But when a daily newspaper reports that a government Minister, Min Gypsy Peters made a grand proclamation the number of "confirmed" visitors seemed astronomical.  According to the Newsday article:

“Some 220,000 Carnival visitors will be brought to TT by Caribbean Airlines Limited (CAL) said Arts and Multi-Culturalism Minister Winston “Gypsy” Peters, at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news briefing at the Diplomatic Centre. He alluded beyond the CAL figure given to last week’s meeting of Cabinet’s Finance and General Purposes (F&GP) Committee, further visitors would be brought to TT by other airlines. Peters later confirmed the 220,000 CAL visitors hold confirmed bookings.”  Read the article here

Now read this posted by ttgaper.com and you decide for yourself who you should believe:

For the millennium celebrations from February 17 to March 6, 2000, 42,646 visitors came to enjoy Carnival. However, the trend of fluctuating arrivals continued, when in 2001 there were 35,221 visitors. There was another decline in arrivals in 2002, when 33,487 visitors arrived. Visitor arrivals in Trinidad and Tobago for 2003 increased by 15.08 percent to 38,537 visitors. However, this year surpassed the last eight years with a record 45,492 visitors. Last weekend, Tourism Minister Howard Chin Lee expressed optimism that visitor arrivals would continue to increase since Government had plans in place to boost the tourism industry.  Read the rest of the story here

Are we to believe that since 2006 when the last article was published Trinidad and Tobago Carnival celebrations have grown approximately over 400%.  If true, the infrastructure to accommodate that many people would have also grown significantly with the highest recorded 45,492 visitors in 2006.  Stop for a moment and think hotel rooms, food and emergency services all will be increased significantly.  

The numbers just don’t add up.   The 64 million dollar question in one word; why?  

Is it political?  The success of Caribbean Airlines corporate advertising?  The  Ministry of Tourism superb job? There must have been a reason for such a significant increase in visitors.

Only time will tell.

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