The National Carnival Commission (NCC) is expecting more visitors for Carnival 2024, the commission’s chairman Winston “Gypsy” Peters said on Monday.
The launch of Carnival will take place on November 4 at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain, with a pre-show from 3 pm. The theme for Carnival 2024 is Carnival Come Back Home. Gypsy thanked the commission’s deputy chair Davlin Thomas for devising it.
The launch is expected to be approximately seven hours and will give snippets of what will be done next year, he said.
[caption id="attachment_1041714" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A masquerader dances with a dame Lorraine. - David Reid[/caption]
He did not divulge much but said the commission was hoping to improve on the number of people who visit the country.
“That is why we have been doing all of these outside Trinidad and Tobago promotions, to ensure that we get all of these people we really want to get into the country.
“We are doing a lot of things to attract people,” he added.
Gypsy said TT was the only Carnival in the world with characters like the blue devils, cow mas, dame Lorraines and midnight robbers etc.
“No other country has our characters and we find that when we take these characters outside of TT, the interest shown gives us the impetus to go on and do it even more.
“These characters come from our regional carnivals mostly. In the main, we have adopted so much other stuff from Brazil and wherever else into our Carnival, that we now have to call our real Carnival traditional mas,” he said.
[caption id="attachment_1041628" align="alignnone" width="862"] Brass 2 The World -[/caption]
The NCC has been encouraging the growth of traditional mas by incentivising private enterprises producing these bands.
“If you remember, at one time, these things were almost extinct. We are now trying resuscitate it and with good results,” he said.
Asked if there were going to be partnerships with hotels and airlines to encourage more visitors, Gypsy said that has always been in place.
“We have always been in constant contact with them. Let us take for instance, when we do the outside intervention, we have a sponsorship arrangement with Caribbean Airlines (CAL), and they have been doing an excellent job in terms of getting us there and back.
“We are in talks with them because we are seeing the benefits and people’s interest in coming to the country.”
[caption id="attachment_1041715" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Tobago now and that is basically a prelude to TT’s CarnivaTobago now and that is basically a prelude to TT’s Carniva - David Reid[/caption]
Gypsy said people’s biggest complaint of travel to TT was that it was too expensive, with which he agreed.
“But I don’t know how much that is predicated on the international going ons with the airlines. So there is very little we can do other than talk and stuff. But having said that we have been holding these kinds of talks with our national carrier and they have been very receptive in terms of telling us they will try.”
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