Tapping into music tourrism

Sand, sun, and sea. It was once the tried and tested method to lure tourists to the region but that formula is slowly being reinvented.

It’s now being called ‘‘festival tourism,’’ a heady blend of jazz, hip-hop, rhythm and blues that is emerging as a major drawing card as part of the marketing strategy being used to the hilt in the Caribbean.

Throughout the Caribbean, countries are promoting and marketing their Carnivals, jazz, blues, gospel, music and reggae festivals, and most of them taking place outside the peak tourism season.

Although there is yet to be any full-fledged analysis of the impact of festival tourism in the Caribbean, there is no doubt that the various festivals are indeed having a positive impact on revenues particularly during what is considered the slow tourism period.

Sister-isle Tobago, joined the jazz bandwagon when it hosted its second jazz festival over the weekend. Organised by CL Communications, it literally brought the house down.

According to Tourism Secretary in Tobago, Neil Wilson, all international flights and over 5,000 rooms were fully booked as a result.

Looking at the economics of festival tourism, Dr. Keith Nurse, lecturer and researcher at the Institute of International Relations of the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, in a paper presented at the fifth annual Caribbean Conference on sustainable tourism development in St Kitts said festivals have emerged as an important contributor to the tourism industry throughout the Caribbean, peaking in tourist arrivals which coincides with some event, particularly a musical or carnival festival.

“Festivals throughout the region contribute in a significant way to boost tourism arrivals, visitor expenditures and hotel occupancy rates. Festivals have also made an important contribution because they perpetuate and transplant Caribbean culture and values and influence global culture, media and public opinion,” said Dr Nurse, who also conducted a study on ‘The Caribbean Music Industry’.

In spite of this contribution to the diversification and the competitiveness of the tourism industry, there is little or no published data, with a few exceptions, by the various national and regional tourism authorities, he said.

“The synergy between tourism and the arts, entertainment or cultural industries is largely under-researched in the Caribbean. This state of affairs can be explained by the fact that the cultural industries have traditionally been viewed as leisure and recreational activities and not as a commercially viable sector.”

He noted that throughout the Caribbean, festival tourism is gaining prominence in the tourism calendar and in many respects, was built on the success of a few festivals.

These include Reggae Sunsplash in Jamaica, which started in the late 1970s and was succeeded by Reggae Sunfest in the early 1990s and the Trinidad Carnival, a model to many regional and overseas Caribbean carnivals.

Other festivals, include Santo Domingo’s “Festival de Merengue”, an outdoor week-long celebration which was originally sparked by Puerto Rican visitors in the late 1960s and has been fuelled by summer travel by the large diasporic Dominican population.

The St Lucia Jazz Festival, too, which from inception was geared towards creating a demand-pull in a tough period in the tourism calendar. The festival has had strong media appeal and attracts an up-market audience of international and intra-regional tourists.

The Barbados Cropover festival, originally a sugar cane harvest festival, was revived by the national tourism agency in 1974 to fill the void in the tourism off-season. The festival attracts mainly overseas nationals and intra-regional visitors.

The St. Kitts Music Festival, which features multiple genres of music, was started in 1996 to boost tourism on the island.

In a study on Trinidad Carnival, St Lucia Jazz and Barbados Cropover, Dr Nurse said the main finding is that festivals create a strong vibe for visitors.

Most festivals impact positively on hotel occupancy levels. The best example of how festivals impact on an off-season is that of St Lucia where the month of May was converted from one of the worst tourist months to a position where it now enjoys above average occupancy levels — (74.5%).

A comparable example is the case of Reggae Sunsplash in Montego, Jamaica. When compared with a peak week (first week in February) in the winter tourist season, hotel occupancy levels in the week of Sunsplash averaged 14 percentage points higher for 11 years, 1981 and 1983 to 1992.

The case of the Dominican Republic is also instructive. Arrivals and hotel occupancy levels in Santo Domingo jump in the month of July when the Merengue festival occurs. Over the period 1995 to 1999 the month of July averaged an occupancy rate of 71.7%, which puts it as the third highest month.

In the case of Trinidad Carnival, the festival is able to generate occupancy rates above 90%. This is achieved because of the large influx of visitors relative to the small hotel plant in Trinidad.

The festivals make a measurable impact on government taxes, according to the study by Dr Nurse.

The most illustrative case is that of the Trinidad Carnival. The festival has a large number of visitors and generates departure taxes of US$0.5 million, one-quarter of the budget of the festival. There are other tax benefits. When value-added taxes (15%) are applied to visitor expenditures of US$14.08 million government earns US$2.1 million in indirect taxes. The combined effect is that taxes generated by the festival exceed government s initial investment of US$2.0 million by approximately US$600,000.

Jamaica’s Jazz and Blues festival is also having a tremendous impact on the hospitality industry, boosting visitor arrivals.

According to a survey conducted by the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), some 22,600 persons attended the 2005 festival. Some 25 per cent tourists, who attended the 2005 show, were visiting Jamaica for the first time while 75 per cent were repeat visitors. The survey found that 43 per cent of visitors came to Jamaica specifically for the festival.

In addition, 55 per cent of non-Jamaicans attending the festival were from the United States 22 per cent were from the United Kingdom, 13 percent from Canada and ten per cent from other countries.

Nelly V Cruz Rodriguez, public relations director of Puerto Rico Tourism Company, said now more than ever, as competition is growing from far flung destinations worldwide and Mexico and Latin America nearby, the Caribbean as a whole must find new ways to remain competitive.

“ Cultural tourism is increasingly popular among travelers. In the US, our main feeder market and a major source of visitors for much of the Caribbean, 75% of adult travelers attended a cultural activity or event while on a trip, according to a recent TIA survey. This translates to an estimated 100 million adults,” Rodriguez said at the recent Caribbean Media Exchange in Puerto Rico.