Sports Event Management: The Caribbean Experience

Citation

Richardson, S. (2012), "Sports Event Management: The Caribbean Experience", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 24 No. 2, pp. 350-352. https://doi.org/10.1108/09596111211218634

According to Pellegrino (2010, p. 1) “major sporting and entertainment events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games, FIFA World Cup, the Universal Exposition (World's Fair or Expo), Formula One, and the Tour de France have become a top agenda item for governments around the world. These kinds of events can be a significant catalyst for change, elevating the host's global stature and turbo charging its economic, political, and social development”. As the competition to host such events intensifies understanding the implications of hosting such events becomes crucial. Sports Event Management: The Caribbean Experience examines the impact of hosting a major sports event on small island developing states, utilizing the 2007 International Cricket Council's (ICC) Cricket World Cup (CWC) as a case study. This event was the first time a world cup in any sport had been held by eight independent countries. This text highlights the various challenges faced by the eight local organising committees in hosting this event as well as the many lessons learnt from hosting events of such magnitude. The book provides event managers, tourism organisations, governments, academics, students and anyone else interested in hosting major sporting events a concise understanding of the benefits of hosting large events as well as how to avoid some of the pitfalls encountered as a result of hosting the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup.

This is an edited text with chapters written by a variety of authors. The book, comprising 12 chapters contains four main sections:

1. 1.

   an introduction to staging sports events and the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup;

2. 2.

   an assessment of the impacts of this event;

3. 3.

   the logistics and marketing related to the hosting of the event; and

4. 4.

   a conclusion.

Chapter 1, the introduction, provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup covering issues such as the institutional arrangements for the staging of the event; venue selection; challenges and opportunities; and the critical success factors.

Part two of the book comprising chapters 2‐7 covers various economic, social and environmental impacts of this event. Chapter two provides a critical socio‐economic assessment of the ICC Cricket World Cup providing a comparison between the proposed and actual benefits of hosting the event in each host country as well as the Caribbean as a whole. Chapter 3 examines the success of a project set up to minimize the impact of waste on host venues and cities. This program, “Bag Your Own Garbage (BYOG)”, was developed to test a system whereby patrons of large public events where encouraged to bag their own waste and place it in bins located around the stadium. Chapter 4 discusses issues relating to ways in which destinations can leverage sports events to increase awareness of community tourism projects. Chapter 5 subsequently investigates whether Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago were able to leverage the Cricket World Cup to enhance community tourism projects in their countries. Chapter 6 focuses on the social and cultural consequences of the Cricket World Cup on the people of Trinidad and Tobago and discusses why local spectatorship was so poor at matches held in the country. The final chapter in this section, Chapter 7, highlights the views of locals towards the hosting of the event in Kingston Jamaica. This chapter discusses the reasons why the potential benefits of hosting this event were only moderately achieved. This section gives the reader a wide‐ranging understanding of the supposed benefits of hosting Hallmark events as well as the actual impacts of the ICC World Cup on the Caribbean region. One negative aspect of this section is that whilst 8 countries were involved in hosting matches in this tournament the information in chapters 2‐7 relate mainly to just three of these: Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados.

The next section of the book, part 3, contains 4 chapters (8‐11) and scrutinizes the logistics related to hosting an event in eight separate countries as well as the marketing challenges faced by the organising committees. Chapter 8 is quite unique and provides an understanding of the Sports Agronomy Team (SAT) that was developed to provide consultancy services to the Cricket World Cup organising committee on all issues related to pitch and field. This team worked with each of the eight individual host countries to ensure the standard of pitches and fields were consistent across the various host venues. Chapter 9 details issues related to accommodation shortages in the eight countries hosting matches. Specifically the chapter investigates the impacts of the Government of Barbados decision to implement a US$2.5 million bed and breakfast/home accommodation loan fund. This fund was implemented to encourage property owners in Barbados to develop their homes into home/bed and breakfast style accommodation. Chapter 10 provides an overview of the mediated images surrounding the ICC Cricket World Cup, while chapter 11 examines the impact that the “watching friends and relatives” have on host destinations.

The final section of the book, part 4, provides a concluding chapter, Chapter 12, which synthesizes all previous chapters to highlight the legacy that the event has provided the Caribbean. It also summarizes the major issues that the event faced and the foremost impacts of the event.

Whilst this book provides readers with a comprehensive understanding of the issues related to hosting a major international event across different countries, one negative aspect is that there is a lot of repetition between chapters relating to the background to the event. A great deal of organisational information is provided in Chapter 1 and this information is repeated in various subsequent chapters. Overall, this text provides a useful understanding of the issues related to hosting a Hallmark event. Future organizers of such events will find this book enlightening, allowing them to capitalize on the positive aspects of hosting such events while learning from the mistakes highlighted to minimize negative impacts. The book will also be a useful resource for academics teaching event related courses.