The Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA) says there are more fetes tak­ing place this year than last year, adding this is a sign the State of Emer­gency (SoE) is not af­fect­ing Car­ni­val events and has not im­pact­ed for­eign in­ter­est.

In fact, the as­so­ci­a­tion says there will be be­tween 300 to 400 fetes for Car­ni­val 2025.

Ad­dress­ing the im­pact of the SoE on the fes­ti­val at the launch of its Glob­al Stake­hold­er En­gage­ment Plan yes­ter­day at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, TTPA ad­vo­cate Paige De Leon said they con­tin­ue to pri­ori­tise safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty in their events be­cause fail­ing to do so would cause se­ri­ous dam­age to their brands.

“We are not ob­tuse to the fact that there is a per­cep­tion that Trinidad and To­ba­go is an un­safe place. We all live here, we know what the re­al­i­ties are, but we do have to con­tin­ue with our lives and con­tin­ue with our lives and con­tin­ue do­ing what we need to do, be­cause as the au­thor­i­ties would have in­di­cat­ed, the eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties of the coun­try can­not halt,” De Leon said.

Her com­ments were echoed by TTPA pres­i­dent Robert Thomp­son, who said from their stand­point the in­dus­try was “in a good place” and “it is re­al­ly busi­ness as nor­mal.”

Speak­ing at the To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil’s Stake­hold­er Meet­ing last week, THA Tourism Sec­re­tary Tashia Bur­ris said To­ba­go was fac­ing some neg­a­tive re­ac­tions to the SoE, but of­fi­cials there were still cal­cu­lat­ing the ac­tu­al fall­out.

But the TTPA in­sist­ed that is not be­ing re­flect­ed in Trinidad for Car­ni­val.

De Leon es­ti­mat­ed that there will be be­tween 300 to 400 events through­out the sea­son, which ends at mid­night March 4. She said that range rep­re­sents a pos­si­ble in­crease in events when com­pared to last year.

The TTPA al­so launched the Glob­al Car­ni­val Al­liance (GCA), a Car­ni­val think tank the as­so­ci­a­tion said will build up­on ex­ist­ing al­liances with­in the Caribbean Car­ni­vals and cre­ate net­works that would make it eas­i­er for Car­ni­val busi­ness­es to gain work in in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

“The al­liance is meant to cre­ate some kind of frame­work for how Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean owns and brands the com­mod­i­ty,” De Leon said.

“The oth­er thing is the net­work of prac­ti­tion­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go and be­yond, and if we want to see our lo­cal busi­ness­es grow and be­come glob­al brands they have to have a place through which they can do that.”

She said these part­ner­ships can coun­ter­act the re­al­i­ty of dwin­dling re­sources with­in the Caribbean, by help­ing more stake­hold­ers de­vel­op in­to glob­al busi­ness­es that func­tion out­side the lo­cal in­dus­try as well. The TTPA said it is en­gag­ing in a mix­ture of pro­mo­tion and di­rect out­reach to in­vite part­ners in­to the GCA.