Congratulations are in order for all those who helped make Guyana's bid for the 2007 World Cup a success. Minister Teixeira, Mr Allsopp, the cricketing fraternity and the others who pitched in can be justly proud of their efforts. They should all savour the moment for when the afterglow dies the real hard work will begin and all of us will have to answer to the question: Can Guyana deliver a quality experience during the World Cup matches?
Defaulting on a World Cup bid will prove tremendously costly to this country and will put paid to any chance of tourists taking us seriously so failure is not an option. The critical element, of course, is the stadium. What exists at the moment at Providence is a clearing in a former ridge and furrow cane field with a few pieces of building material and sand as a backdrop. With the matches less than three years away and given the unique Guyanese penchant for delays and the last-minute flourish can we just leave this stadium project to run its usual course? That would be risky.
What the stadium and every other part of the World Cup preparations need is an energetic czar at the head of a high-powered, can-deliver multi-talented team with a direct line of communication to the President and adequate resources via state funds or private sector financing. Though a broad committee is already in place this should be instantly revisited with a view to getting the best talent on board and giving the team the authority to take its own decisions.
Considering the likelihood that a highly-divisive election will occur some time in 2006, less than a year before the games, the political parties will have to make a pledge not to do anything at all that could destabilise this project and lead the cricketing community to question whether we can pull it off. The crisis in Zimbabwean cricket is a prime example of the dangers of internal instability and unrest.
Apart from the stadium, challenges remain on the accommodation front. Where are the investors to create the additional hotel rooms or to upgrade the existing ones going to come from? Is it feasible to park cruise ships offshore to accommodate visitors or isn't it a better idea to have the tourists on terra firma spending their money on local goods and services.
What about transportation and congestion on the roads. After years of gridlock on the East Bank the government is now hustling to ease the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Will this be enough especially if the Timehri airport is the main conduit for arriving tourists? What about taxi and bus services for this period? Ideally a shuttle service would have to be put on for tourists lodging in Georgetown to get them to Providence. Who will provide this considering that there is little prospect of after-tournament usage - the same dilemma that new hotel capacity is likely to face. As things stand the entire fleet of minibuses servicing Georgetown would have to be put at the disposal of the tourists and others travelling to the matches.
And what about the immigration facilities at Timehri? How will they be able to cope? Will the planned expanded Ogle Aerodrome be up and running and able to take off some of the traffic from the main airport? Each World Cup venue will also have to field hundreds of volunteers to answer questions, provide information etc. Who is going to take care of this? The security services will also have to have a significant input. Are our stretched disciplined services going to be in a position to get on board?
But it doesn't end there. Dealing with thousands of tourists arriving here in a very short time frame for a particular event is not something that Guyana has seen before let alone managed. It is hard to see how in less than three years there will be a transformation from the poor services presently offered to what is required. The tourists who are going to come will not expect five-star treatment but will demand standards that are currently above what we offer at most hotels, restaurants, clubs, bars, entertainment shows and in minibuses, taxis, speedboats etc. Let's see the Tourism Ministry's plan to get these sectors tourist-friendly to the stage where they understand what quality service means.
Given the recent experience of the Finnish Ambassador who was shockingly mugged at gunpoint while on a leisurely stroll near the Promenade Gardens how are we all going to ensure that the hordes of World Cup tourists don't end up like the salmon swimming upstream at the mercy of the bears. It is foolhardy for tourists to venture out at night into certain parts of the city today. How are we going to get this to change in three years when so many years of failed attempts have gone by?
This is a national undertaking and we will all savour the success or be saddled with the blame were anything to go wrong. It requires each of us to become a foot soldier on behalf of the country and we eagerly await the plans to be rolled out by those in charge.