Sancia Bennett-Templer
Daraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter
THE ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC) ended in the Caribbean over six months ago. While the excitement that was associated with the event has long died down, the Jamaica Trade and Invest (formerly JAMPRO) says the country is now poised to capitalise on the benefits of hosting the event.
It cost Jamaica US$105 million (nearly $7 billion) to jointly host the cricket tournament with eight other Caribbean countries. Jamaica's role was to host the opening ceremony, for which a new stadium was built in Trelawny at a cost of US$30 million; warm-up matches - group matches involving the West Indies, Pakistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe; and, one semi-final match.
Revenues from the tournament were projected at a mere US$9 million.
But within the next five years, Jamaica will land more than the initial projections of US$400 million in investments arising out of the hosting of the Cricket World Cup.
Sancia Bennett-Templer, deputy president of Jamaica Trade and Invest, tells The Sunday Gleaner Jamaica is well positioned to reap the legacy of hosting the World Cup.
Foreign direct investments
"We had indicated under our targets that we would over the period to 2012 achieve US$400 million in foreign direct investments. What we are talking about here is significantly in excess. We are confident that we will achieve in excess," Bennett-Templer discloses.
Kirk Kennedy, the man who is leading the Cricket Legacy Programme at Jamaica Trade and Invest, says Jamaica has broken into non-traditional markets and has all but secured multimillion-dollar investments. Kennedy says that companies from India have expressed interest in investing in both the information communication technology (ICT)and film sectors. While refusing to state the names of the companies, he tells The Sunday Gleaner that one company involved in the ICT sector is contemplating making a US$120 million investment.
Kennedy also says that a few Indian film companies have expressed interest in investing in Jamaica. "We feel very strongly that within the next six months, we will have one of those companies over here," he states.
Perhaps the earliest manifestation of Indian investment in Jamaica will be in the form of a coffee production company, which will be set up in Mavis Bank, St. Andrew shortly.
Canada is also one of the non-traditional investment countries that is looking Jamaica's way.
Ecotourism options
According to Kennedy, a Canadian bee-keeping company is deliberating moving its operations to Jamaica. It is said that other agricultural and ecotourism options are being considered by investors, this after Jamaica was beamed to the world during the CWC.
Jamaica Trade and Invest has been selling Jamaica under the tag, 'Today's Jamaica Means Business'. As Mark Thomas, communications manager at the investment promotion state agency says, "the world should see us yes for or sand, beach and sun, but we are far more than that."
The Brand Jamaica initiative, buoyed by the CWC, is said to be reaping benefits. Bennett-Templer says that there are 12 overseas companies which are at advanced stages of negotiations with Jamaican producers. She says that there is also one Jamaican packaging company that is in negotiations to supply its product to the United States market, and nine local companies that have already sent off initial shipments to buyers overseas.
But the area of sports and entertainment tourism is yet to take any real form. Arline Martin, also of Jamaica Trade and Invest, says that a strategy document has been prepared under a major events attraction programme, which looks at the country's capacity to host major international events.
Also yet to benefit in any fulsome way from Jamaica's hosting of the Cricket World Cup are some house owners who had gone into the bed and breakfast home-stay programme. The Sunday Gleaner investigations have revealed that some persons who joined the programme with a view to benefiting from cricket's showpiece event did not receive a single visitor.
Over 100 properties, with a capacity of 250 rooms, were listed on the uniquejamaica.com website for advertising during the CWC. A source close to uniquejamaica.com says some of the properties were too far away from Sabina Park or the Trelawny Multi-Purpose Stadium where World Cup activities were taking place.
daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com
CWC was no help to tourism figures
JAMAICANS, like other Caribbean citizens, were promised bumper crowds for the ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC), held earlier this year.
Tens of thousands of persons, spending millions, were supposed to arrive on the shores of the isle and the tourism industry would have experienced a spike.
At least, that was the picture painted by governments and cricket interests prior to the Caribbean hosting the tournament.
However, more than seven months (283 days to be exact) since the tournament came to the Caribbean, the lives of many persons who had prepared for a piece of the CWC tourists' dollars have not changed.
Karen, a St. Andrew woman who received a bank loan in order to buy wares to sell during the tournament, says she is still counting her losses.
"Me think me would make a money, but a debt me put me self into," Karen tells The Sunday Gleaner. "The problem is that we never have nobody to buy from we, even though me did hear that tourist going to be every where ... even in yuh backyard," Karen says.
One Corporate Area pan-chicken vendor says that his sales have slowed down now because a number of people entered the business at the time of CWC, hoping to capitalise on the expected tourist inflow.
"All now mi a feel it. The World Cup was not a bad idea, but it wasn't for the small man," he says.
But that is just one face of the stillbirth baby that the CWC seems to have delivered. Jamaica's tourism figures have not yet begun to show signs that the world's third-largest sporting event with worldwide appeal brought extra cash to the islands during the summer.
Stopover arrivals decrease
The CWC took place between March 11 and April 28. For the month of March, Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) figures point to a decrease in stopover arrivals of 1.7 per cent. Some 164,547 stopover visitors were in Jamaica for that month, compared to 167,439 recorded in March 2006.
During March this year, the West Indies, with stars such as Brian Lara, Chris Gayle and Shivnerine Chanderpaul, were playing in the first round of the World Cup here alongside Pakistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe.
By April, the tournament rolled into the group stage. Jamaica was not hosting any games except for the semi-final between New Zealand and Sri-Lanka. Stopover arrivals in April were 150,561, a decrease of 7.8 per cent over the 163,273 recorded in April 2006.
There were, however, marked increases in the number of visitors from select countries that were involved in the CWC.
Ireland, for instance, which beat Pakistan and made it through to the Super Eight, furnished Jamaica with 263 visitors for the month, a 69 per cent increase over the previous year. Australia, which did not play a single game in Jamaica, had 835 nationals, 664 more than it supplied in 2006. There were 136 New Zealand nationals in Jamaica for the period, 100 more than those who visited in the previous year; 37 Pakistanis up from three in 2006, and 398 Indians - more than 350 more than the number that came in 2006. The Sunday Gleaner was unable to ascertain how many of these visitors came as a result of the CWC games.
See related story on B12.
- D.L.
