Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Charles Ramson Jr., says next year’s International Cricket Council’s U19 World Cup competition could bring an estimated US$3m into the local economy including around US$1m into the hotel sector.
Ramson Jr., made the comments Sunday on the sidelines of Guyana being officially declared hosts of the ICC Under-19 World Cup 2022.
He explained that infrastructure was already being put in place with hotels such as Jaigobin’s being established in proximity to the venues as per the ICC requirement.
According to Ramson Jr., the criteria from the ICC stipulates that there must be accommodation within a 30-minute radius to transport the team and hotels must be able to accommodate the influx of travellers.
“They had a radius that they were working with where they were residing for the tournament so because they are staying in hotels and they have to be hotels of a good standard with the number of rooms and good capacity because you heard the number of teams coming for the tournament, you’ve got 16 teams…so if you assume 25 persons or so are coming with the teams plus these players are young players, some are coming with their families, those numbers of hotel rooms have to be available and located in a certain area but it’s got to be located near the grounds.”
It is through these criteria that the World Cup has been centralised to the National Stadium at Providence while the Enmore Ground, East Coast Demerara and the Everest Cricket Club, Georgetown Cricket Club, Eve Leary Ground and Demerara Cricket Club, will serve as practice venues.
The minister also revealed that it is his plan to see Berbice’s Albion Community Centre Ground host international cricket once again and he also wants to see Essequibo’s Anna Regina Ground as a regional venue.
“The big stadium though is going to be in Albion. Our intention is for that to host international games, not just regional games, international games and the one in Anna Regina, we are programming it to host regional games so you have first-class cricket passing through the country.”
Additionally, Ramson Jr., reminded that 25 satellite grounds have already received enhancement funding to the tune of $10M each.
“If you left it up to me, I would love to take the games into the other regions because obviously, you’ve got a lot of cricketing talent in those areas, he said.
“It also generates a lot of economic activity into the area too,” he added.
Teams for next year’s World Cup competition will start arriving from as early as January 2, 2022.
