No fewer than 300,000 tourists attended the recently concluded 32-day Calabar Carnival held in Calabar, Cross River State capital, the Cross River Tourism Bureau announced on Saturday.
The bureau’s Managing Director, Ekpenyong Ojoi, who stated this in a statement in Lagos said that there was a 42 per cent growth in tourist attendance for the carnival in comparison with 2023 statistics.
“Calabar recorded over 300,000 tourists from November 1 to December 31, 2024, who came in for the Calabar Carnival to see the OMR, Marina Resort and the Kwa Falls.
“Most of the tourists were from Abuja, Lagos, and neighbouring Akwa Ibom State. Again, there was a tremendous increase in tourists to the destination when compared to the 2023 figures of over 190,345 tourists to our enchanted attraction sites, within the same period.
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“The number of visitors to the destination for the 2024 Calabar festival outweighed that of 2023 by 42 per cent. An estimated 450,000 onsite spectators witnessed the Carnival Calabar event, the Cultural Carnival, the Children’s Carnival, and the Bikers Carnival events, as against the 279,486 onsite spectators recorded in 2023.
“Over 1.2 billion viewers watched the carnival events on DSTV channel 198 across the world. Live online streaming of over 100 million viewers was recorded within the festival period,” Ojoi said.
According to him, throughout the period under review, November 2024 to December 2024, the occupancy rate of accommodation establishments in Calabar rose to 68 per cent from 57 per cent in 2023.
He added that more than 90 per cent of hotels in Calabar had a 100 per cent occupancy rate between December 15, 2024 and December 29, 2024.
“Revenue generated from hotel bookings is estimated at N2.79 billion ($1.74 million) with N25,000 per night confirmed hotel bookings in December alone for about 3,600 available bed spaces in Calabar Cluster.
“Revenue from food and breakfast alone stood at an estimated N900 million ($562,000),” Ojoi added.
He noted that Hogis Royale, Metropolitan Hotel, Hogis Hotel, Monty Suits, UG Willis Hotel, Moju Hotel, Danic Hotel, Dallas Suits, De Grand Hotel, generated more than 54 per cent of the revenue from hotel bookings.
“The major ticketed events include the Funfest, Calabar Fashion Show, and Queen of Humanity which generated an estimated N100 million ($66,000).
“The average estimated revenue from the five major nightclubs in the destination generated N400 million ($267,000).
“Activities such as online streaming, food and drinks, dancers, and car rentals, generated an estimated N1 billion ($667,000),” he said.
Ojoi noted that N8.87 billion was spent on transportation by visitors to the destination, which covered air, road, and sea transport.
