Paul A. Reid, Staff Reporter
SEIVWRIGHT
WESTERN BUREAU:
TRELAWNY, AND by extension Jamaica, will have a great chance to capitalise on a lot of international media coverage during the period of the opening ceremony of the International Cricket Council's World Cup in 2007.
The yet to be constructed stadium at Greenfield, Trelawny will host all 16 countries, the teams, the officials, an estimated 20,000 spectators and over
2,000 media personnel at the proposed early March 2007 opening ceremony.
President of the Falmouth Chamber of Commerce, Dennis Seivwright, said Jamaica should cash in on this great opportunity to sell a positive image.
OUR GREATEST CHANCE
Dennis Seivwright stated, "I think our main emphasis during the World Cup 2007 is to set up business conferences and media centres, so we can caress the media of the world. There will be over 2,000 media personnel here and this will be our greatest chance to market Tre-lawny and Jamaica at one time."
He added, "We must set up centres, where the media can get all the information they need about the country in one place. The media must have access to information as soon as they get here and it must be packaged, so they will want to go see the places themselves."
Mr. Seivwright said he was excited about the plans for the Greenfield stadium, because of the "great, awesome potential" ahead.
"It could quadruple our employment opportunities and business could grow tenfold, because after selling the image of Jamaica there will be great inflow of investments, people buying homes, tourist arrivals, employment,
culture and crafts," he said.
For the use of the stadium to be maximise to its fullest potential, Mr. Seivwright said his vision was to market it as a venue for international music festivals and not to let it languish and unused.
A MULTICULTURAL APPROACH
"One of my visions (for the stadium) is that people will understand that the stadium will not be a white elephant. In my head right now is that we start to seek international joint venture partners to make the venue a world musical festival centre, because Jamaica throughout the world is seen as the country for music and everyone loves Jamaican music every where you go."
The stadium, he said, must not just be about sports, but a multicultural approach must be taken as it is "large enough in terms of building, seating and land space to host an international music festival when people from every where can come to display their music and culture."
The impact of the stadium and the ICC World Cup 2007 opening ceremony will have tremendous impact on every aspect of life in Trelawny, he said.
"Every single business interest here has something to benefit ... from the handcart man straight up to the large multinational entities and every single aspect of life in Trelawny will be affected in a positive away," he said.
