IN an effort to tap into Jamaica’s potentially rich sporting culture, Jamaica Sport, was launched at the Courtleigh Hotel recently by government and will serve as the entity to develop and co-ordinate sports tourism locally.

Jamaica Sport is a technical working group established by the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment and the Ministry of Sport under the guidance of the Sport Tourism Implementation Committee (STIC), headed by Chris Dehring as chairman.

“It’s been a long time coming. It’s a massive venture even though it may seem like a small start. It’s a seed that we think will grow into a massive tree,” said Dehring, who is chairman of telecommunications provider LIME Jamaica.

“We are trying to capture, harness, measure it, evaluate it, invest in it and grow it,” Dehring added.

Jamaica Sport will explore the commercial opportunities provided by sport tourism, while leveraging brand Jamaica and the sporting events held locally and internationally to ensure that Jamaica maximises on its publicity, public relations and marketing and promotional opportunities.

It will also encourage additional visitors to Jamaica’s shores by capitalising on synergies between tourism, sport and entertainment.

Dr Wykeham McNeill, Minister of Tourism and Entertainment, reiterated that Jamaica has an abundance of assets that need to be harnessed and marketed for the greater good of the country, and sport is one of those assets.

Sportsmen and women such as George Headley, Arthur Wint, Don Quarrie, Mike ‘The Body Snatcher’ McCallum, Merlene Ottey, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Usain Bolt are just a few of the hundreds of sport icons whose names have become synonymous with brand Jamaica,” Dr McNeill pointed out.

“The name Jamaica has also been etched in the annals of countless sports. Some of them like bobsled for instance, have earned worldwide admiration for our ‘can-do’ spirit as we have excelled in sports for which conditions do not exist here,” he noted.

According to Dr McNeill, his ministry is committed to ensuring that all areas that complement growing tourism industry are tapped to reap maximum benefits in an ongoing effort to diversify the tourism product.

Jamaica Sport will focus on four key areas:

(1) Working in tandem with the national Council on Sport, they will develop mechanisms to bid on or host strategically important sport events.

(2) Develop a methodology and system to identify and select indigenous sport events to be endorsed and facilitated by Jamaica Sport with the aim of boosting tourist arrivals and raising the stature of Jamaican athletes and Jamaica as a major sport destination in the region.

(3) Coordinate with the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Jamaica Tourist Board in developing an economic model to assess sport events.

(4) Partner with INSPORT to develop athletes and nurture world class talent as an important component of an Athlete Ambassador-type programme that capitalises on Brand Jamaica and raises the public relations profile of elite athletes for the country’s economic benefit. This would be similar to the approach taken by UK Sport.

“The potential for developing sports tourism as a viable market segment in Jamaica is tremendous, especially in light of Jamaica’s dominance in track and field at successive Olympic Games and World Championships. Now is the time to capitalise on this potential,” says Dr McNeill.

Meanwhile, Natalie Neita-Headley, minister with responsibility for sports, said it is clear what sport and tourism can do for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country.

“This is really the hallmark of a programme that is going to set sport and tourism and take it to another level,” said Neita-Headley.

She continued: “Sports is big business… in 2013, 900,000 football fans visited Britain and they spent over £750m. On average each spent about £875”. “But in Jamaica, we can’t yet offer consistently a recurring schedule of international global events.

“However, with careful planning and this newly introduced Jamaica Sports team, it has the capacity to market and research and develop programmes which will allow us to consistently attract tourists to our shores not just for jerk chicken, not just for sea and sand, not just to come to hear the great music but they will come here to be a part of our sports,” the minister added.