Caribbean Creatives July-Sept 2011 | Page 8

C A R I B B E A N C R E A T I V E S continued from previous page Table 1: Modes of Supply and Trade in Creative Services Mode of Supply Cross-Border Supply (Mode 1) Consumption Abroad (Mode 2) Commercial Presence (Mode 3) Movement of natural persons (Mode 4) Description Caribbean Exports Fewer still include statistics on personal, cultural and recreational services; audio-visual and related services and architectural, engineering and other technical consultancy services. The international transactions relating to certain services such as festival and heritage tourism and performance arts are in principle included in either the EBOPS item travel (when it is the consumer moving to the country of the producer, i.e. mode 2) or in personal, cultural and recreational services (for mode 1 and 4). However, only 22% of CARIFORUM countries provide data in their BOP for personal, cultural and recreational services. What the above shows is that while creative services trade occurs in the region, the lack of data makes it dif?cult to give a complete picture of the extent of this trade, the main markets and the market access barriers. The majority of CARIFORUM countries’ trade in creative services takes place through Mode 2 (consumption abroad) in the form of festival and heritage tourism and through Mode 4 (temporary movement of natural persons) through performances in key markets like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and France. Festivals are a major component of CARIFORUM countries’ events and tourism calendar. The region’s three largest festivals (Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, the St. Lucia Jazz Festival and the Barbados Crop Over Festival) regularly conduct exit surveys which provide quality data on visitor arrivals. These surveys show that the festivals have contributed to visitor expenditures, airlift and hotel occupancy rates. Box 1 presents some of this data for the St. Lucia Jazz Festival. While festivals in the region are inextricably linked to CARIFORUM countries’ tourism sector, recent studies have highlighted their importance in contributing to diaspora tourism. Festivals such as Surifesta and Avond Vier Daagse are important for Suriname’s diaspora tourism market. Besides local festivals, there are several Caribbean carnivals which take place mainly in cities in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, which have sizable Caribbean diasporic communities. These are Caribana in Toronto, Labour Day in New York and Notting Hill in London. Heritage tourism is another important creative services export for the region. A study commissioned by the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (2009) found that heritage tourism sites in the Region can be classi?ed into four types: natural attractions, cultural/ heritage attractions, manmade attractions and events. One of the most successful heritage tourism sites is Jamaica’s Bob Marley Museum. In 2006, total earnings were US$280,000 for the last ?scal year 2006, which was a 20% increase over 2005 (CTO, 2009). Given the above, the argument can therefore be advanced that creative services trade is making a bigger contribution to CARIFORUM economies than current available data shows. Several reasons account for the disparity between existing data and current CARIFORUM services trade realities. First, as previously mentioned there is the lack of adequate and uniform methodologies for de?ning and measuring creative services. The recommendations of the new Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services (MSITS 2010) can help in clarifying the classi?cation of international services transactions involving a "creativity" component * MSITS 2010 is a joint publication of Eurostat, IMF, OECD, UNCTAD, UNSD, UNWTO and WTO and is designed to help governments equip themselves with better statistical tools for economic analysis. It uses a dual approach by promoting consistency with existing classi?cations related to services and extending them where necessary. MSITS 2010 is fully consistent with the 6th edition of the IMF Balance of Payments and contains the revised Extended Balance of Payments Services classi?cation (EBOPS 2010). Sources: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/statcom/doc10/BG-FCS-E.pdf http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ditctab20103_en.pdf CTO (2008). Development of a Strategic Business Management Model for the Sustainable Development of Heritage Tourism Products in the Caribbean. Bridgetown: Caribbean Tourism Organisation. Downloads of music or movies Low through the Internet Activities like cultural, festival, High heritage tourism Establishment of a branch or subsidiary to provide services Low Travel abroad by artist or band High to provide services. E.g. Tours. Box 1: Pro?le on the St. Lucia Jazz Festival The St. Lucia Jazz Festival is one of the most widely anticipated events on the r egion’s entertainment calendar. Held in May, the impetus behind the creation of the festival was to increase visitor arrivals to the island during a traditionally slow period of the year for tourist arrivals. A world class event, St. Lucia jazz includes a tantalizing line-up of contemporary regional and international artistes. St. Lucia bene?ts from the exposure received through marketing the event and the festival has been able to generate a number of new and repeat visitors each year. Much of the data on visitor perception and expenditure comes from the exit survey done by the St Lucia Tourist Board which targets patrons of the event. Both the 2009 and 2010 surveys showed that most visitor expenditure was spent on accommodation. In 2010, some 48% of expenditure was on accommodation, while only 10.3% was spent on jazz events and merchandise. According to the survey report of 2010, one-third of the nonnational respondents came from the USA (35%), with a quarter coming from the Caribbean (26%) and slightly less from the UK (22%). The non-resident nationals also primarily came from the Caribbean (38%) and USA (36%). The Canadian market saw the highest percentage of repeat visitors. Source: Caribbean Creatives expresses its gratitude to the St. Lucia Ministry of Tourism for providing this data. 8 www.creativeindustriesexchange.com Volume 3 July - September 2011