- Economic Impact Assessment for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, prepared by Cricket World Cup.
By Ryan Straughn, Minister in the Ministry of Finance
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (GIS) – I think the ICC-MT20-WC-24-Economic-Impact-Barbados clearly supports the view that the government is serious about sports in general, but clearly cricket has a special role for Barbadians. And so, the fact that the report shows that Barbados represented 26 percent of the overall impact of the entire Cricket World Cup, I think is significant.
Now, much has been said about the monies that was put into Kensingston and the other facilities to be able to support the upgrades and the work, and I think that Barbados really, truly can be vindicated by the fact that the almost $430 million that was estimated in relation to the overall economic activity last year is actually quite significant.
Now outside of the fact that the United States had three venues, Barbados had a slightly higher percentage of the impact. The reality is that Barbados, I think, outperformed all venues, and the statistics certainly demonstrate that. But what’s more interesting, really and truly, is that when you break down the analysis between accommodation, beverages, transportation and retail, there were significant expenditures undertaken by visitors.
And, I think that given the quantum, for example, the estimate for transportation is 15.1 million. That means taxis and coaches and the ZMs, all of those persons were able to benefit directly last year from approximately 60,000 people that the report indicated came to Barbados last year for the cricket. And therefore, these are numbers that you really can’t scoff at because it demonstrates why you need to have these kinds of events more frequently that will help drive, not just the sporting economy, but actively create opportunities for inclusive growth.
So, I’m happy to see that across the spectrum you had significant activity, both for large companies as well as for small companies. Food and beverage was almost $23 million, so that means a lot of beers were drunk, and a lot of rum was also drunk. And therefore, that too is a particular element, because we technically could count those as exports. Obviously, they were consumed here, but the reality is that bodes well certainly for some of the manufacturing components within the food and beverage sector. Of course, people would have eaten at restaurants and at Oistins, and we all saw it. So, these numbers just confirm what we saw.
What I found particularly interesting was that 41 percent of the persons visited Barbados for the first time. And I think that that’s a significant figure, because that’s almost 25,000 people who visited Barbados for the first time in June last year.
And therefore, I feel that the work that we now have to do is to make sure that we can either put on more specific cricketing events, but more broadly work with the BTMI and other agencies to be able to get those people to come back to Barbados more frequently. And therefore, as we’ve had a very strong repeat visitor profile, then it’s something that I feel that we have a natural target market to be able to go after at this time.
Of course, for the future, we want to be able to see where, for example, the conclusion of the naming rights for the venue; more sporting events taking place at Kensington Oval, such that the investment that we’ve laid on, with respect to the upgrades last year, that the venue itself is capable of maintaining itself, becomes self-sufficient.
It can raise the standard for cricket. It can raise the standard for any other sporting activity or event that may be hosted there; so that the people of Barbados can feel proud that the investment that we all made in the hosting of the 2024 ICC T20 Men’s World Cup, it was a success. And I think we just have to make sure that we get these things done quickly and continue to focus on the human capital development.
Click here to download the Economic Impact Assessment for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 – Barbados.
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