IAN WA­SON

Sports Cor­re­spon­dent

This coun­try is es­ti­mat­ed to have 20,000 vis­i­tors dur­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil T20 Men’s Crick­et World Cup in June when West In­dies host the show­piece event along­side the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.

Act­ing Min­is­ter of Sport Ran­dall Mitchell told the Low­er House in Par­lia­ment that the match­es are ex­pect­ed to bring in an es­ti­mat­ed 150 mil­lion in rev­enue for Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing to­day’s sit­ting.

“Con­cern­ing vis­i­tors, we have es­ti­mat­ed and we ex­pect to re­ceive be­tween 10,000 to 20,000 vis­i­tors here for the crick­et­ing World Cup dur­ing June,” Mitchell told Par­lia­ment. “There­fore, if we es­ti­mate that the av­er­age spend at a con­ser­v­a­tive 1,500 US dol­lars per per­son, we es­ti­mate con­ser­v­a­tive­ly that vis­i­tor spend would be ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 mil­lion Trinidad and To­ba­go dol­lars.”

Sen­a­tor Mitchell then ex­plained that lo­cal spend­ing will add to the econ­o­my as well.

“This does not con­sid­er cor­po­rate lo­cal spend, nor does it con­sid­er lo­cal spend­ing dur­ing the event,” Mitchell con­tin­ued.

“And this, Madam Speak­er, cre­ates the usu­al eco­nom­ic stim­u­la­tion that is as­so­ci­at­ed with these types of tourism events. There will be di­rect and in­di­rect earn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties across var­i­ous sec­tors, in­clud­ing trans­porta­tion, tour guid­ing, tour op­er­a­tors, bar and restau­rant own­ers, street food ven­dors, and of course, tem­po­rary em­ploy­ment to meet the in­creased de­mand for ser­vices.”

ICC Men’s T20 Crick­et World Cup 2024 Bill 2024 which was passed in the Sen­ate on April 30, 2024, was al­so passed in the Low­er House yes­ter­day.

The Bill was pro­posed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al (AG) Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC in the Sen­ate on April 30 in the Sen­ate, be­cause the Min­is­ter of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis is on au­tho­rised leave.

Trinidad and To­ba­go will host six match­es dur­ing the World Cup in­clud­ing West In­dies vs New Zealand on June 12, New Zealand Ugan­da on June 14, and the sec­ond se­mi-fi­nal on June 27.

Mitchell al­so as­sured the pub­lic that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty would not be com­pro­mised.

“The LOC (Lo­cal Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee) has al­ready fi­nal­ized, as I am ad­vised, a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty plan,” Mitchell ex­plained.

He said, “The LOC has fi­nal­ized a health and safe­ty plan. They have fi­nal­ized a traf­fic man­age­ment plan, in­clud­ing a park-and-ride sys­tem, ar­rival and de­par­ture, lo­gis­ti­cal plans for teams and of­fi­cials, venue op­er­a­tions plans, and a mar­ket­ing plan for pro­mot­ing the tour­na­ment. All of these de­liv­er­ables with a view to achiev­ing a seam­less ex­e­cu­tion of the tour­na­ment with the best pos­si­ble ex­pe­ri­ence for all con­cerned, play­ers, pa­trons, coach­es, and the me­dia, and en­sur­ing at the same time that cit­i­zens’ dai­ly rou­tines are not un­du­ly af­fect­ed.”

The World Cup will be played across six venues across the West In­dies and three in the USA.

In ad­di­tion to the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do, the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um in North Sound, An­tigua, Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bridgetown Bar­ba­dos, Prov­i­dence Sta­di­um, Prov­i­dence, Guyana, Arnos Vale Sta­di­um in Kingstown, St Vin­cent and the Daren Sam­my Sta­di­um in Gros Islet, St Lu­cia will al­so play hosts in the Caribbean.

USA venues are Cen­tral Broward Park, Lauder­hill, Flori­da, Nas­sau Coun­ty In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Sta­di­um, East Mead­ow, New York, and Grand Prairie Sta­di­um, in Grand Prairie, Texas.

The World Cup in the Caribbean and USA will be the biggest as it will be the first time 20 teams will be tak­ing part.

The World Cup will be­gin on June 1st with the two North Amer­i­can teams, the USA and Cana­da at the Grand Prairie Sta­di­um.

West In­dies are two-time T20 World Cup Cham­pi­ons, hav­ing won the ti­tle in 2012 and 2016, both cap­tained by cur­rent coach Daren Sam­my.