Cricket World Cup backfires

The ICC World Cup 2007 mascot mounted on a billboard at the entrance of the new Trelawny Multi-purpose Stadium

If you believe in Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and all the glamorous fairy tales read to us as children, the possibility exists that you would have been fooled into believing that 100,000 cricket crazy tourists would have visited the region during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007.

But, if you are as sensible as I am, you would have known this was a marketing strategy placed in a 100-page selling plan which succeeded in blindfolding the governments of the region.

Three years ago I started writing on this issue and I was accused of misleading the public by stakeholders attached to the games. I predicted that a number of governments would lose elections in their respective countries as a result of Cricket World Cup, and I am still backing my prediction - St. Lucia's Kenny Anthony has already lost his preferred position.

Cricket has been such a dismal failure that even in the eastern Caribbean where they are offering fans free entry into the stadiums after 11:00 a.m., most of the grounds remain partially empty.

proud Jamaican

Don't get me wrong, I am still one of the proudest Jamaicans who stood in the Trelawny Multi-purpose Stadium with tears in my eyes after the opening ceremony. That day will remain with me for years to come; so too will the amount of money that the region has been literally robbed of.

It is obvious that we did not thoroughly examine the various ramifications before placing our heads under water and are now faced with paying for a costly lesson in economics.

What I will never understand is how we could have agreed to CWC during the most important month in the winter tourist season. And how in God's name did we expect to make a profit among ourselves with a total of nine countries cutting into the same mini pie?

And, as if that was not enough, we had to go and implement the CARICOM visa without consultation with the stakeholders in the industry, worsening an already bad situation.

Research has shown that no World Cup event (cricket) has attracted more than 20,000 people at any given time. Yes, we felt our pristine beaches, friendly and beautiful people and diversity would have done the trick, but obviously we were wrong.

There is a fabulous woman in the region by the name of Berthia Parle who was vilified for being too vocal about the World Cup, but I will walk the same walk as that St. Lucian spitfire any day of the week. Had we listened to her we would not be in the dilemma we are in today.

It would seem as if the Jamaican hoteliers on the north coast saw the drawings on the wall early and did not give up certainty for uncertainty, so had it not been for the outside forces such as the United States Passport Initiative and the CARICOM visa many would have fared better.