Devon Evans and Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Writers

St. Ann's Bay Mayor Delroy Giscombe and the island's private sector have added their voices to concerns raised over Government's preparedness for Cricket World Cup (CWC) slated for March.

Following a monthly council meeting on Thursday, the St. Ann Parish Council said it would withdraw further support for all events in the parish related to CWC 2007. The decision followed what some councillors described as the scant regard being shown for them by members of the Local Organising Committee (LOC).

Speaking in an interview with The Sunday Gleaner yesterday, the mayor said the parish council had been left out of plans and programmes for the parish.

He said the council had submitted a list of infrastructural improvements to be undertaken to prepare the parish for the games, but those requests had been ignored by the LOC. The improvements would have cost the Government some $80 million.

"We will not take part in anything to do with it. We will not be welcoming any visitors to this parish for World Cup Cricket until we are properly recognised," he said.

visa regime

The Jamaica Chamber of Com-merce (JCC) and the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) have joined the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) in voicing their concern over the impact of the new CARICOM visa regime.

In a statement to the media yesterday, the organisations said they were concerned that the increased growth in tourist arrivals would not be sustained in light of new requirements.

Tourism Minister Aloun Assamba announced last week that the country had experienced a dramatic increase in tourist arrivals in 2006, shooting up by nearly 18 per cent over the previous year. Arrivals by cruise ship and stop-over arrivals had also shot up by 13 per cent, she said.

But following that announcement Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Associa-tion president, Horace Peterkin, raised questions over the sustainability of the growth in tourist arrivals. He said hoteliers were angered by the sudden decision to implement the CARICOM special visa and argued that it would be more devastating to the tourism industry than the minister anticipated.

bookings cancelled

He said several bookings were already being cancelled in some hotels, from countries such as Russia. He noted that these were countries with whom the tourist board had worked hard over the last year to establish a relationship.

In their statement, the JCC and the PSOJ raised similar concerns.

"It is our understanding that the ICC Cricket World Cup was expected to be a major visitor boon for the region and Jamaica in particular ... However, with exemptions from CARICOM special visa being granted to citizens of some countries ... we believe that this could threaten the achievement of this goal," the organisations said.

Some of the countries exempted are the United States and its dependants, the United Kingdom and its dependants, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Ireland, the Nether-lands and South Africa.

The statement said further that the The U.S. passport requirements, coupled with an unusually warm winter this year, could also affect the growth in tourist arrivals. The regime, which was implemented this January, will require U.S. citizens travelling to the Caribbean to present passports for reentry into the U.S.