Car­ni­val con­tin­ues to at­tract vis­i­tors to our shores, but tourism of­fi­cials say the sea­son’s per­for­mance re­mains steady rather than ex­pand­ing, with re­peat vis­i­tors dom­i­nat­ing ar­rivals and lim­it­ing eco­nom­ic spin-off for lo­cal op­er­a­tors.

Ac­cord­ing to the Tourism In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TIATT), ho­tel oc­cu­pan­cy and tour ac­tiv­i­ty for Car­ni­val 2026 are at their usu­al lev­els, sim­i­lar to pre­vi­ous years, de­spite ex­pec­ta­tions that in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­est in the fes­ti­val could trans­late in­to growth.

TIATT chair­man Charles Car­val­ho said yes­ter­day that while pre­cise da­ta were not yet avail­able for 2026, ho­tels were per­form­ing at ex­pect­ed lev­els, par­tic­u­lar­ly in down­town Port-of-Spain, where most prop­er­ties were filled.