The Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo) has become one of the latest companies to come on board and sponsor the Jamaica International Invitational Meet (JIIM).

The State-run company recently added its name to the list of sponsors at launch of the event at Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston on Wednesday.

The event, which celebrates 15 years, is the premium international track and field meet in the country.

Double Olympic gold medallist from the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Elaine Thompson, will headline the meet which takes place on Saturday, May 19 at the National Stadium.

Executive director of TPDCo, Dr Andrew Spencer, could not contain his excitement about his organisation’s involvement.

“There is a natural relationship between tourism and sport and it always confuses me a little bit as to why we don’t do more together. Sports is a big deal; we recognise what sports does for the country… tourism is a big deal, and so when the opportunity was presented to us for this partnership I became very excited because we have what we consider to be the tourism dilemma,” he said.

Spencer believes that the JIIM will help to solve one of the challenges that his organisation faces as it seeks to carry out its mandate.

“The tourism dilemma is that we are really not an industry… if you look at the classical definitions of an industry, we are not. We are a series of moving parts so we face the challenge of coordinating these moving parts and ensuring that we get the best bang for our buck.

“Sports is an excellent way to do that and which is why we have embarked on our five-by-five-by-five — which is to achieve five million visitors and five billion US dollars in five years, and we know we cannot do that if we continue to focus on only traditional types of tourism. So we recognise that this diversity in building the product at TPDCo rests heavily on sports and entertainment,” said Spencer.

He also indicated that TPDCo is in it for the long haul, as they push to fuse sports with tourism.

“This is so important to us that the five networks in the Ministry of Tourism speaks to health, wellness and gastronomy. It looks at knowledge, it looks at shopping and also one of the key networks is sports and entertainment.

“So today we are very deliberate about this partnership and maybe a little bit different from our other representatives and sponsors in that, while we are fully endorsing the event, this deliberateness that we approach it with is for a long-term partnership to ensure that sport can be recognised in the tourism space and that tourism can be recognised in the sporting arena,” Spencer outlined.

TPDCo’s sponsorship of the event includes covering some of the costs for accommodation of the athletes as well as provision of craft items for medals.

The JIIM is unique in this aspect in that, instead of providing traditional medals to race winners, all the athletes finishing first to third in their respective events are given works of art done by Jamaican artisans and craft vendors who are aligned with the TPDCo.

Over the years these gifts have proven to be a real hit with the athletes, both local and international.

“The meet itself forms a key element within our tourism product, but it also provides an avenue for individuals to experience parts of our tourism product,” stated Spencer.

At least eight of these artisans and craft vendors will have their products on display and available for sale in the Grandstand area of National Stadium on the night of the meet.

— Dwayne Richards