NCC chairman Kenny de Silva told local media hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops, airlines and other businesses would benefit from the two-day festival, which formally kicks off Sunday night with the Dimance Gras show.
“Carnival generates $1 billion according to a study undertaken a few years ago. It is quite possible we could exceed this figure this year. There are different spin offs from Carnival.” De Silva said, noting that Carnival remains one of the country's biggest tourism products.
Forty-five million of the $100 million is for prize money and $52 million went to construction of the Grand Stand and North stand. This is the first time in three years that carnival is being staged in the Savannah.
The remaining $3 million is for security services, meals, refreshments and stipend for judges, construction of the vendors’ booths, setting up of a Carnival village and preparation for all NCC’s venues.
De Silva said the expenditure is below the $130 million budget provided to the NCC by government and promised that taxpayers will "get their monies’ worth".
He said hundreds of armed and unarmed security guards will be on duty at all major Carnival venues to ensure that everyone is safe. Da Silva said they will be working closely with the protective services.
“This year you will be seeing a higher presence of security officers when compared to previous years because we expect this Carnival to be the biggest,” he said.
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