Guyana, August 20, 2006...About 50% of public tickets for the Super Eight matches in the Cricket World Cup 2007 tournament to be held in Guyana next year have been sold with the majority of the sales going to members of the Guyanese diaspora.

Tickets in a number of categories were oversubscribed in some Caribbean countries, namely, Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Trinidad and Tobago.

A lottery to allocate seats to the lucky applicants started over the weekend and those to be awarded tickets are expected to be informed as soon as the lottery is completed this week.

In a telephone interview, the ICC CWC West Indies 2007 Inc Commercial Manager Stephen Price told Stabroek News that purchase of tickets from Guyanese living at home was "kind of disappointing."

Being a once-in-a-lifetime major event in this part of the world and more so a historic one for the Providence cricket stadium, Price said he would have expected more Guyanese living at home to patronize the event. Many Guyanese have bought tickets, but for other Caribbean venues.

He said that the bulk of the ticket sales for the Guyana matches were going to the Guyanese diaspora in North America and England.

The countries that had made the most purchases ranked in terms of number of sales, were the United Kingdom, the USA, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Australia, Jamaica, India, Canada, Guyana and St Kitts.

Only the Corporate Hospitality Packages in the commercial ticketing for Guyana, which were made available by the ICC Local Organising Committee (LOC), were sold out. These included six suites with a seating capacity of 12 each and limited numbers of 'enclosure' and 'hamper' packages. The suites were sold at US$2,200, while the enclosure was US$549 and the hamper US$448.

The public sale of tickets will continue on September 1, and tickets will be allocated on a first come first served basis, so that Guyanese stand a chance of still obtaining tickets. Price is urging them to take advantage of the ticketing centres in Georgetown, saying that in all ticket categories there were "generous numbers" remaining.

In the first phase there had been specific allocations per host venues, sponsors and the international community, but this would not be done in this second phase. "It's now up to Guyanese to purchase as soon as possible," he said.

He noted the problem of accommodation for Guyana still remained, although the Guyana government was doing everything possible to boost this area, including getting the bed and breakfast programme on stream.

He felt that more people were interested in the Guyana matches, but they needed reassurance where accommodation was concerned. To date there are just about 1,728 hotel rooms to come on stream including 676 which are still under construction. Tent villages, a bed and breakfast programme as well as a trailer service are due to complement the hotel rooms, but the number would fall short of visitors interested in coming to Guyana for the tournament.

While accommodation might be one of the problems, some local observers feel that the issue of Guyana's elections might be a bugbear, in addition to the fact that a number of violent criminal activities have been occurring in the vicinity of the stadium. (Miranda La Rose)


Source: Stabroek News