450 Players & Visitors here in Barbados for at least 10 days: Great boost for Barbados Tourism Product from Football Masters Tournament
Bert’s once again proved the place to be as he joined forces with Banks Beer and the Tourism Authority to assist in the launch of the 12th edition of the B’dos Int’l Masters Football Festival (that is a mouthful, for simplicity’s s sake, let’s refer to it as BIM-Footfest)! Bert’s is fast becoming a leader in Sports Sponsorship…
The organisers had much to say about BIM-Footfest; Adrian “Ockey” Donovan explained that the grounds of Carlton, Dover and Wanderers are the main venues for the matches which run from today until the public holiday on Monday… Paul “Starsky” Wright added that the tournament has brought in 450 visitors who will spend anywhere between 10 to 14 days in Barbados due to BIM-Footfest XII!
Chairman of the Festival’s Organising Committee – “Starsky” added that 170 of the group alone came from the UK, and the competitors list grows each year – there are now teams from Toronto, Boston, New York, 3 teams from St Vincent, there are also groups from St Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago as well as Antigua!
He also quite gleefully urged the media present to take those figures to the Market Vendor who claimed to reel in some 80 ppl for the Rally season.
“Ockey“, who’s also Asst Director of the Nat’l Sports Council, says there’s no need to fear if matches run late into the evening as portable lights have been rented – he added with glee that this is unlike the LOC with CWC 2007!
I spoke with Paul “Starsky” Wright afterwards to get a background on what led to the tournament’s long-term success …. he remembers when in 1992 it had a pre-cursor series where over-35′s played then in ’93 there were 4 teams competing and the actual BIM-Footfest took flight in 1995. He added the season is huge now, the committee cannot overlook obtaining a website which is expected to be reality by 2008!
