Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

Jamaica is to soon launch a new sport tourism drive to take advantage of the global coverage the island's athletes received for their record-breaking performances during the Beijing Olympics, according to tourism minister, Edmund Bartlett.

"A full programme is now being developed by us to deal with the legacy from the Olympics through the marketing and promotional side of tourism as well as working with the minister of sport to enhance sports tourism as the key strategy," said Bartlett.

In the meantime, though, the minister noted that an international beach sprint near yearend would be part of the programme.

Broader development

He will name the personalities to lead broader development of the project when sports minister Olivia Grange, who was in Beijing returns home, Bartlett said.

The programme will focus on five sports: golf, athletics, cricket, football and netball.

The Jamaican sprinter, Usain Bolt was the biggest track star of the Olympics having set individual world records in the 100 metres and 200 metre races and being part of the island's 4x100 team that also set a world record.

Jamaicans also took the top three spots in the women's 100 metres race and the first and third places in the women's 200 metres. Jamaican women also won gold and silver respectively in the 400 metres hurdles and the 400 metres flat race.

Overall, the island won 11 medals on the track, including six gold and three silver medals.

Market place

"The impact of the Olympics for Jamaica was to change the conversation in the market place of Jamaica primarily as the destination (of choice), and for that we had everybody talking about Jamaica as the sprint factory of the world and as the centre of high performance ... ," Bartlett said.

Tourism, which grossed around US$2 billion in 2007, is Jamaica's largest industry and its biggest earner of foreign exchange, after remittances. Approximately three million tourists came to the island last year.

Jamaican officials have long talked about the development of sports-based tourism and have in the past been able to attract golf tournaments, including one sponsored by Johnnie Walker. It has, however, been unable to sustain these efforts.

Bartlett believes that things are about to change.

Beach sprint

"We had our messages being sent out in 15 different languages to almost every country that was there (in Beijing)," said Bartlett.

"We launched the first ever world 100m beach sprint to be held here in Jamaica in November of '09 and had Miss World endorsing Jamaica along with Usain Bolt, the fastest man."

Bartlett said the presence of his tourism team in Beijing had allowed the country to develop investment links with the Chinese.

He said as a result of this link, the chairman of one of the largest investors in China would be visiting Jamaica soon to look at possible investments in the country.