The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

Sports tourism was a topic of note during the 2013/14 Budget Debate for the ministers who share the platform.

Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe lauded the efforts of minister of youth, sports and culture Dr Daniel Johnson, as the pair have liaised on several projects in recent years.

“We have a wonderful team and I want to thank the minister of youth, sports and culture and let him know that he is doing a wonderful job in sports tourism,” he said. “Our job is to bring the business to the Bahamas and his job is to make sure that everyone is comfortable and the facilities are ready and that we have these wonderful tournaments. He has oversight of these tournaments and he makes wonderful speeches at these tournaments.”

Wilchcombe said another major event is on the horizon for the Bahamas, adding to the increasingly growing list of sports tourism events which continue to bring visitors to the Bahamas in droves.

“It has been outstanding work and let me tell you, that is going to make the difference because right now I am in negotiations to have the first international beach volleyball tournament in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and we are about to close the deal on that as I speak,” he said. “Again we are talking about bringing bodies to our country, all kinds of bodies to our country. They are going to come and you are going to see the the sports tourism industry grow.”

Johnson said sports tourism is one of the many aspects of the business of sports which the Bahamas looks to develop.

“We have found that this sports tourism product is a full time job. We went ahead and built on some interesting things and we now find that instead of one day, we have to push this product forward everyday. This year, we attracted to the Bahamas the greatest athletes in the world in the Chris Brown Invitational, we saw the LPGA come to town, the Professional Golfers Association of America’s ladies side were 144 golfers, professional golfers and they came here,” he said.

“We went to the Tavistock Cup which is the gold tournament thrown by Joe Lewis and Tiger Woods in Orlando, Florida, which hosts the biggest clubs from around the world in golf. This year at Tavistock, the team of Albany representing the Bahams on television with 151 countries for four days was led by Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods put on a shirt that said ‘Albany Bahamas’ and played on the Golf Chanel-NBC sports full-time for four days, two hours a day on international television with no commercials. But imagine the use of that for the Bahamas because everyone was asking ‘Where is Albany?’ So when people ask us why do we go to these things, think about the advertising value of eight hours of coverage on a weekend with about 20,00 people at the event. That is what sports tourism can do for us as a country.”

In May, Tyrone Sawyer, director of sports tourism development at the Ministry of Tourism, projected the Bahamas to earn more than $13 million in revenue from sports tourism in 2013, particularly due to the success of some recent events, including the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualifier tournament, LPGA PureSilk Bahamas Open and the exhibition match between England’s Tottenham Hotspur and Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz which he said “has done a great deal for the country’s sports tourism profile.”