Wilchcombe feels good about carnival numbers

Thu, Jul 30th 2015, 10:32 AM

Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe said yesterday that he felt good about the numbers revealed in the Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival report released Tuesday, but would like to see several changes made to next year’s event.

According to the report released by the Bahamas National Festival Commission (BNFC), the government spent $12.9 million on the inaugural Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival and made $6.68 million in taxes and direct revenue. The price tag went nearly $4 million over the $9 million originally budgeted, according to the commission.

It also said more than $800,000 was spent on Bahamian musicians with over 1,100 entertainers engaged for the three-day event.

“Obviously I would like to see more Bahamian participation, more Bahamian entertainers,” Wilchcombe said.

“I’d like to see the Bahamian entertainers dominate the stages. But I believe they’ve (BNFC) done an incredible amount of work to cause it to happen.

“I’d like to see the vendors make more money, because it is an economic stimulus, and makes economic sense, but I feel very good about the results.”

The report outlined that there were 200 vendors at Da Cultural Village in Nassau, and 52 vendors in Grand Bahama.

Wilchcombe said he believes carnival was not as effectively marketed as it could have been and explained that better marketing will be the next step to attract more tourists to the event.

The commission reported its nine-week international campaign generated over 58 million brand impressions.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Tourism’s billboard advertising campaign in South Florida generated 42 million impressions, the commission said.

“We are now going to start marketing globally, which, in fact, started during the carnival,” Wilchcombe said.

“We had media that came in from Europe and they were here to talk about the event and start the promotion of The Bahamas for next year.

“We’ve participated in events around the world including Latin America, the United States [and] other countries to get more business here.

“We’ve used those occasions to talk about what we’re doing, and of course, the general normal approach of doing things, getting The Bahamas’ name out there, ensuring that more visitors would come.”

Of the estimated 115,000 people who attended the carnival events, BNFC Chairman Paul Major said that approximately 900 of them were visitors.

“I think it could be much better in terms of tourist participation,” Wilchcombe said. “[Carnival is] an outstanding event that certainly has a tremendous potential but we have to work hard to ensure that it happens.”

Wilchcombe said there is no current target for how many international visitors the government would hope to attract to next year’s festivities.

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