I HAVE MIXED feelings about the National Cultural Foundation’s (NCF) “review” of the Follow Me To Crop Over promotions which were to have been rolled out next week in Trinidad for the winding down of Carnival 2011.
The truth is, I was looking to the post-Carnival We Say So to suggest that the entire programme be reviewed. Still, I don’t think the current “hiatus” is any remedy.
In these hard economic times an institution like the NCF would want its programmes to make cents – if it is to make any sense at all going through with them. I can’t argue with that.
And that the promotions were able to attract close to 4 000 people from Trinidad and St Lucia (with a much smaller budget last year) speaks to efficiency or lack thereof within the organization – which needs to be addressed.
Both Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy and Minister of Culture Stephen Lashley spoke to the stepped up marketing for this year’s festival, which Lashley assured the media had already started, and I’m thinking the cancellation of the first promotion in Trinidad might be a little premature.
Even in the roughest of circumstances, it is recognized that you have to spend money to get money, and I would hate to think that this cancellation speaks to a lack of confidence in the people charged with marketing the festival and their ability to deliver.
Just like Labour Day in New York, masses of people from all over the world flood the streets and fetes at Carnival time, and it is a prime place to drop any kind of promotion. And speaking as one who has witnessed it on several occasions, hearing the MC telling the Soca Monarch finals massive something to the effect that the next stop after Carnival is Barbados stirs up amazing emotions.
More importantly, it is marketing that neither the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA) nor the NCF can pay for. I sincerely hope that this is not a casualty in the review.
I certainly understand the point made by former chairman Ken Knight about the need to address the problem with airlift in the region, and I can see how more people could play mas’ for Crop Over if they could only get here.
Lashley and Sealy have also said that airlift was being addressed, but it seems like the focus is on the North American and European markets, which, from all appearances, targets Barbadians in the diaspora.
While it is true that there are more options in terms of carriers from those markets, one has to wonder about the kinds of discussion that go on with regional carriers LIAT and Caribbean Airways, in terms of moving people to Barbados for the festival.
It would also be interesting to see how Red Jet will factor into the equation if and when it takes to the skies.
We have been told that there is a new partnership with the BTA, which will see that institution taking responsibility for the overseas promotion for Crop Over. After the Trinidad pull-out, Sealy said that while the BTA would continue to work with the NCF and the cultural tourism product, the focus was on sports tourism.
Given that fact, one wonders if the BTA will be giving culture the focus it deserves and whether there will be a particular officer or desk in the BTA that will be responsible for the promotion of culture.