CATEGORY:ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
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By Trevor Thwaites (St.George's correspondent)

ST.GEORGE’S, Grenada - As work intensifies on the National Stadium for the ICC Cricket World Cup, the million dollar question being asked time and again is whether Grenada will benefit from the massive investment being made for the big event in 2007. The IMF team that is currently visiting the OECS was asked by the local press whether it was concerned about the large investments being made by the government and whether or not the country was going to benefit from the world cup.

The regional countries are hopeful that there will be good returns from the investments. But, it may take sometime to find the correct answer. “If you look at the impact of similar events- the previous Cricket World Cup in South Africa, the Olympics, the recent Soccer World Cup in Germany, obviously there is a positive exposure for the hosts. You get both the direct visitors and publicity. There is a lot of name recognition that wasn’t there before,” was the initial response from Head of the IMF Mission to Grenada David Robinson to the question.

He admitted that it is a question that the IMF does not have an answer to at the moment and indicated that the answer could be known when several issues are taken into consideration- how much the investment will translate into repeat tourism? Will the people who come to the game or watch it on TV come and visit? If that happens then it’s positive. If that doesn’t happen, what we have seen in addition to some public infrastructure that’s gone in there is a lot of private sector investment that’s done to expand hotels, some here in Grenada, but particularly in Antigua and St Lucia where there has been substantial increase in the hotel stock.

Robinson said that for the investment to impact favourably there is need to ensure for example in Antigua and St Lucia that the hotel rooms are filled and that occupancy rates of the hotels are there to justify the investment. “That is the big challenge. It is really an open question. “If because of the marketing efforts, the results are reaped, then this could well move the entire region up to a higher growth level. But if it is the case that those rooms are not filled then it creates all kinds of other problems.

However, Robinson doesn’t share the view that the region is over investing for the World Cup. He said that the tourism being the engine of growth in the region, large investments will have to be a major player, which would have probably occurred over a longer period of time. “Because of the focus on the Cricket World Cup, it has happened all at once. Will it be justified immediately or overtime? It is hard to say at this point in time. I am not duly concerned about over investment, which is largely private sector driven.”