Cricket World Cup special report

Exclusive TravelMole Q&A with Alan Chastanet, minister of tourism & civil aviation for St Lucia, by Graham McKenzie

Q:      On a scale of 1-10, how happy are you with preparations for the World Cup and the thousands of extra visitors it will bring?

A:       All things considered, I would say 10 out of 10 in terms of preparation for the venue.  The Caribbean will always be a relatively small place and St Lucia is a small island but the good news is that people will be able to see it on TV as not everyone who would like to come will be able to get here.  We have focussed heavily on getting not just the stadium ready but the roads and facilities to get in.  This is a big event, and for many too big to comprehend.  20,000 people are going to stay for a minimal time, say 2-3 days and apart fro the hotels there will be 9 cruise ships involved. 

Q:      Road traffic is known to be bad, especially in the Castries/Gros Islet area.  Is anything being done about it and will it be finished?

A:       The lanes of the main road are being doubled.  We are now down to the last part of paving.  For the semi-final only, there will be two extra piers – one at Gros Islet and one at Pigeon Island.  A great job has been done to prepare for people coming in and going out.  Small villages have increased their infrastructure.  They are preparing to stay open later, turn tables around faster and increase their levels of service.  For the semi-final there will be a huge party in the promenade to slow people down when they are leaving the ground.  Other parties taking place will be unofficial ones, possibly located at rum shops.

Q:      How are ticket sales going?  Are there many left?

A:       There are lots of tickets left for the first round.  England v New Zealand is sold out but tickets for Super 8 are going very well.  Semi-finals and the Final have been sold out for some time..

Q:      Apparently hoteliers in St Lucia are not happy due to the level of visitors staying on cruise ships. Is this true?

A:       The World Cup cricket was supposed to be in May/June but ICC/GCC wanted to hold the event in March, which is in the tourist season rather than extending it as we had hoped and therefore some businesses feel that there will be no ‘extra’ benefit..  Some extra numbers have been gained, but some lost. 

Games are being played over eight islands and so hoteliers are not particularly excited about it because a small number of traditional visitors are staying away.  There is no doubt that North American business is down but this may not be due to the world cup. Americans now require a passport to come here; the extra warm weather has adversely affected visitor levels, as has the return of Cancun.

However, all tourism businesses will benefit from TV exposure – there will be 51 days of televised cricket.

Q:      What will the legacy of the ICC World Cup mean to the St Lucian tourism industry?

A:       Lots of people will discover the feasibility of having a second home in St Lucia as an investment solution. There are a number of new developments, some of which have a golf course, e.g. Raffles. 

That infrastructure, with growth potential, adds inventory to hotel capacity which hopefully will add more airlifts. There are now non-stop flights from London, Miami and Atlanta – good for second home owners.  The £ and € are strong against the $ so we are likely to see a boom in second homes here.  In addition Castries town is undergoing major government funded enhancements. All in all the ICC World Cup will deliver mass exposure to the island via TV and will deliver significant long lasting infrastructure improvements.

• There will be many more opportunities to use the cricket infrastructure – Granada, St Kitts, Jamaica (Trelawny). With more destinations we may see an explosion in visitor levels.

• Other events are being marketed – the Jazz festival, which involves food, rum and music. We have chefs coming in from around the world. Twenty-one companies are coming in to do tastings. St Lucia is about pure jazz – we have George Benson, Isaac Hayes and Will Downing. Also international boxing and triathlon to be established here.

• The aim is to extend the season and market to new markets. We already have a large number of attractions and we are still growing – eg restaurants, diving. Golf is big on the east coast. St Lucia has passed the romantic destination stage.

• The impressions that the Caribbean gives is that it is weak online. The future? The internet is the future. We need to educate hoteliers on internet use. We have been slow off the mark but the UK is slower than the US.  Limited air seats make it easier for operators to control. St Lucia needs to prepare itself.

• Sustainability/responsibility is critical. Fishing villages will have to allow small hotels to operate for them to succeed. Must avoid the feeling of mass tourism in these locations and raise service levels. Physically and socially we cannot be driven by tourism. We need to ease positioning regarding quality of life.