Moving Island Games to 2023 ‘will help tourism’
MOVING the NatWest International Island Games to the summer of 2023 will mean more visitor beds will be available and will give tourist accommodation operators more certainty, Economic Development’s tourism lead Simon Vermeulen has said.
The international competition was set to be hosted in Guernsey in July 2021, but in September it was postponed, due to uncertainty caused by Covid.
However, this week it was confirmed the competition would be coming to Guernsey in summer 2023.
The 2019 Gibraltar games attracted more than 2,000 competitors from islands across the world, with hundreds more support staff.
About 3,500 competitors and officials from small islands across the world and 1,000 volunteers were set to take part in next year’s event.
Deputy Vermeulen welcomed the latest announcement.
‘I think it’s excellent news,’ he said.
‘By that time we will have sorted out how to deal with travel and Covid could be a distant memory.’
He said he could understand the rationale of putting the games back, although it would see cancellations for some hotels, as athletes had booked far in advance. But he was confident that with the event taking place in the summer, if tourism had restarted the hotels would be able to take new bookings. There was also the benefit of bookings for 2023.
He noted that work was currently taking place to build the new Premier Inn, which would provide more visitor beds in time for the rescheduled games.
‘There will be a big influx of people and they will need all types of accommodation, so there will be benefits across the sector,’ he said.
The 2023 event will be the third time Guernsey has hosted the Island Games.
There are currently more than 50 Covid-19 vaccine candidates in trials, but it is expected to take time for enough vaccines to be approved, produced and injected to have an impact on the pandemic.
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