More tourists coming, not staying though

The good news first: More tourists are visiting Trinidad and Tobago during Carnival. Now the bad: The length of time they stay has been decreasing. This trend is shown in the latest statistics released by TIDCO in its “Carnival 2002-2004 Highlights — Draft Report.” The Carnival “period” is defined as being 19 days before Ash Wednesday, which is the commencement of the National Carnival Commission’s Pro-gramme of activities beginning with the National Panorama Preliminaries.

The average daily Carnival expenditure per tourist was TT$306 while the total Carnival visitor expenditure for 2004 was $TT173.2M. TIDCO figures show that when compared with total visitor arrivals during the same period, 2002-2004, Carnival arrivals accounted for an average of 9.1 percent of total arrivals. Total arrivals for 2004 is estimated to be around 435,000. During Carnival there were 40,464 visitors compared to 38,537 last year and 33,487 in 2002.

TIDCO says the average length of stay for Carnival visitors for the period was 16 days. Over the period the length of stay decreased from 20.5 days in 2002 to 13.5 days in 2004. TIDCO says the decline is as a result of a decrease in the number of visitors that stay 15 days and over, coupled with an increased in those that stay between 1 to 3 days. Overall visitors who stayed for 15 days and over fell from 13,164 to 10,750 or 18 percent. Those who stayed 1-3 days increased by 104 percent over the equivalent period from 1,715 in 2002 to 3501 this year. TIDCO says this was consistent with the worldwide trend of shorter vacations. The report showed that Carnival visitors were mostly from the United States — 45 percent. Caricom visitors collectively were 18 percent, with the United Kingdom being the third largest contributor with 14 percent, Canada at 10 percent, Germany at 2 percent and rest of the world at 11 percent. Of Caricom countries, Barbados consistently provided the most visitors to our Carnival with 26 percent, followed by Guyana with 25 percent and Grenada with 15 percent.

The report said that all countries increased their number of visitors over the period, with the exception of Germany, which had a small decline of 1 percent over the period. The number of Caricom visitors showed the largest increase moving from 5,792 visitors in 2002 to 7,600 this year. The US visitors increased from 14,729 to 18,451, Canada from 3190 to 3815 and the UK from 5039 to 5860. On accommodation, the report said although visitor arrivals grew, the accommodation type classified as “other” decreased by 5 per cent. TIDCO assumed “other” to be friends and relatives. However the hotel segment increased by 3 percent over the same period, with the guest house segment showing the best improvement over the period with a 142 percent increase. The bed and breakfast segment also showed overall improvement, but the number of persons staying decreased by 6 per cent. Adults comprised 90 percent of all visitors who were mainly professionals (20 percent) followed by homemakers, retirees and students at 18 percent.