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Tourism Outlook for Carnival 2011
Posted: Wednesday, December 29, 2010
By Derren Joseph
December 29, 2010
Before we talk about 2011, it may be a useful exercise to reflect on 2010. The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) recently released provisional 2010 numbers. Focusing on stay-overs as opposed to cruise visitors (my personal bias I must confess), the numbers confirm what most expected. Yes, 2010 was a rough year but it was also a 'mixed' year for Caribbean tourism. I say mixed because the numbers show that while destinations such as Trinidad and Tobago were down 6% (January to March), Barbados rebounded and was up 3.8% (January to October), St Lucia was up 15.4% (January to October) and that powerhouse called Jamaica was up 4% (January to August) to 1.4 million visitors.
It comes as no surprise that the biggest growth was of course, seen in the Spanish Caribbean. From a tourism point of view, it may be best to call 2010 the 'return of Cancun' as they surged ahead 16.5% to 1.4million (January to July). A great comeback story if ever there was one. Elsewhere in the Spanish Caribbean, Cuba was up 3.4% to 2 million (January to October) and the Dominican Republic pushed up 3.5% to 3.4million (January to October) stay-over visitors.
As I crunched the numbers, two things jumped out at me. Firstly, aside from volcano disadvantaged Montserrat, Trinidad and Tobago was the only Caribbean destination that only knows how many people visited up to March 2010. Remember that this is December 2010! This means that our capacity for data driven decision making is restricted at best because as we learned in Business school - if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. Secondly, it hit me like a brick that February 2010 arrivals (i.e. for Carnival 2010) were down an unbelievable 26.5%.
I have been reliably informed that even that terrible decline in Trinidad and Tobago arrivals is deceptive because it masks what is happening in Tobago in particular. Tobago's decline is much worse and is said to be in 'freefall'. Nevertheless, I am among those who prefer to focus on solutions as opposed to problems and with that in mind, perhaps there are measures that could still be considered as we fast approach Carnival 2011. I say this at a time when stakeholders are already complaining that Carnival 2011 bookings look worse than 2010.
Here are three Carnival 2011 suggestions to consider as the debate progresses. Firstly, we need to deal with airlift. We know that given the number of available beds, we need more inbound seats. As I mentioned in my last column however, part of our national airline's present mandate is to defend market share. This means that they have a vested interest in leveraging their fuel subsidy to 'discourage' incoming charters and scheduled carriers who wish to service our destination. Somehow, an economically feasible compromise needs to be worked out where Charters especially, are protected or even encouraged because we have far fewer seats than available beds.
Secondly, we need to bring bands together with hotels and ideally with available seats to create 'packages'. This clearly is not new as Cascadia Hotel was the first to develop a relationship with Tribe. Today others have followed as Hilton now has a package of sorts with Spice. I am sure there are others but costumes and beds, still need to be packaged with available seats. I am only aware of Carnival Burnout doing this. We need public-private-partnerships where these entities are supported, facilitated and effectively promoted by the state. This takes me to marketing.
Thirdly but very importantly is marketing. Marketing is useless without an acceptable product to sell. Once the affordable seats are created and packaged as suggested above, we are almost there. The lowest hanging fruit remains the Diaspora. Diaspora also double as our overseas salesforce - which Barbados has recognized as they created incentives for overseas Barbadians to encourage foreigners to visit “home”. Given the private-public-partnership approach, it may be helpful to leverage the Diaspora networks that exist around entities like Poison UK or around online communities like TriniJungleJuice and Torontolime. These networks have already captured the target audience and hopefully, could be relied upon to help encourage visits especially for key festivals like Carnival 2011.
From a tourism point of view, the outlook for Carnival 2011 may be bleak, but it is not too late. Someone reminded me that a definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. It is time to try something new.
'Season's Greetings' and God's richest blessings to all! As always, I end by saying that despite our challenges, we are so blessed to live in this beautiful land. Let us continue to have the audacity of hope in the future of our beloved country.
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