As Tourism Department officials distanced themselves from the ill-fated U.S. Youth Games held last week on St. Croix, Commissioner Rafael Jackson gave notice to tourism-funded events in general: Start looking for your own funding.
Jackson and Assistant Tourism Commissioner Pamela Richards held a press conference Thursday to outline the department's role in organizing the Youth Games held Aug. 1-7 on St. Croix.
Richards, who heads the department on St. Croix, said her involvement began more than a year ago in July. That was followed by a commitment from Tourism to help with arranging accommodations and transport to and from the airport for the approximately 600 athletes and chaperones expected for the event, pegged to cost more than $500,000.
In March 2000, Tourism hosted national coordinators of the Youth Games at a meeting at the Divi Carina Bay Resort to give them an overview of the island, Richards said. By the end of March, Richards said, she told Jackson that Ralph Wilson, president of V.I. Youth Games Inc., "needed assistance and that some of the duties may well be needed to be taken over."
By May there were questions as to whether the games should be held because of a lack of funding. But organizers – and not Tourism — decided to continue anyway, mostly because the visiting teams had already made deposits on travel and rooms, Jackson said.
"Hotels had begun getting bookings. You just couldn’t have gone and cancelled the games," said Jackson, who was in Atlanta on the event’s opening day.
Richards was attending a tourism conference in Barbados for the start of the games, which coincidentally or not, began with a canceled opening ceremony. Despite the ensuing problems with transporting and feeding athletes and scheduling events, Jackson said the Youth Games was a success.
"We had one day of chaos," he said. "In one day they turned around. We proved it was possible."
The Tourism Department "did a little more than provide rooms and meetings and greetings at the airport," Jackson said. "Ms. Richards has gone above and beyond her duty . . . in terms of making sure everything was in place . . . even though it was not Tourism’s responsibility."
Additionally, said Jackson, the department isn’t "in the event-planning business."
"I take exception that when anything happens with tourism in this community, the fallback is on the Department of Tourism," he said.
Jackson said events such as the St. Thomas Carnival, the Crucian Christmas Festival and the St. Croix International Triathlon should fund themselves or receive money from the General Fund rather than rely on Tourism.
The triathlon, for example, receives $150,000 from the department’s revolving fund. If the race organizers could find corporate sponsorship or obtain money from the General Fund, the $150,000 could be spent on advertising the territory instead, Jackson said.
"Because of budget constraints, I don’t think we can continue to fund it at that level from the revolving fund," he said. "We will continue to fund it, but I can ensure that it won’t be at the same level. Total dependence on the revolving fund has to cease.