Cricket World Cup - A Disaster or a Success?

The absence of the anticipated hordes of visitors to St. Lucia for Cricket World Cup is causing anxiety amongst business people, large entrepreneurs and hoteliers as the investments they undertook for the event seems not to be producing the necessary financial returns they expected.
Tourism Minister, Allen Chastenet sums up the feelings of those who invested heavily for the event by stating that the event is turning out to be a disaster.
Hoteliers are on radio and television talking about empty rooms, rooms that are usually filled at this time of the year.
Several events planned for Cricket World Cup have been cancelled because of low visitor turn out to the island.
Anyone can see that the comments to date are factual because the influx of visitors, hyped up by the local organising committee for Cricket World Cup, is just not there.
But is it correct to say that the event is a disaster simply because hotel rooms are not filled and local investors are not getting returns on their investments?
Cricket World Cup is more than just filling hotel rooms. It has to do with the exposure the island gains regionally and more importantly internationally and in markets, where the local tourism product is more successful like the United Kingdom and North America.
With the games beamed to England, New Zealand, Kenya, Canada and other Caribbean islands, at least thrice a week, accompanied by snap shots of the island, St. Lucia is getting worldwide exposure of the type it would not have received had it not hosted some of the games.
The above, along with the many articles written about the game for sports magazines around the world by the scores of regional and international sports writers all of whom have being sampling the pleasures St. Lucia has to offer, will redound to the benefit of the island. A benefit that could not be counted in the short term.
Therefore were St. Lucians misled by the authorities into believing they would be making lots of money out of Cricket World Cup or did they mislead themselves after the local organising committee outlined its plans to deal with the thousands of visitors they expected but never guaranteed, would descend on the island.
Not knowing how the climate would be for the event it was therefore fitting that the local organising committee put in place contingency plans just in case their expectations were fulfilled or surpassed.
However, despite the shortfall in the expected hordes of visitors (15,000 was the last figure quoted) to arrive in St. Lucia for the games, and the woes of many, the island stands to benefit because of the exposure it has been receiving on an international level thanks to the games.
The onus is on the Ministry of Tourism, the St. Lucia Tourism Board, the Tourism Advisory Council and other local tourism entities to maximise on the gains the country has made in penetrating known and unknown tourism markets.
Now that the name St. Lucia is out there, viewed in traditional markets like the United Kingdom and North America every week for the past two weeks and for the rest of the tournament, every effort should be made to aggressively market St. Lucia to reach pockets of our traditional markets we would never have reached with our advertising dollars.
Local investors may hail Cricket World Cup as a disaster but not all is lost when one considers what St. Lucia, as a country, may stand to gain as a result.
(M.G.).