World Cup team trying to woo more Indians

A group of senior officials working on the 2007 Cricket World Cup (CWC) will start a four-day trip of India, with the aim of encouraging more Indians to come to the Caribbean for the tournament.

Barbados' delegation will be headed by Chris deCaires, the chairman of the local organising committee. He will be accompanied by Joe Benfield, the chief financial officer, and Petra Roach, who is head of the Barbados Tourism Authority's European office. Also making the trip to New Delhi will be Ken Gordon, chairman of the CWC board of directors, Chris Dehring, the chief executive officer and managing director of the CWC's head office, and Marvia Roach, communications manager of the tournament.

deCaires said that India was a crucial market for the World Cup and beyond. He said that they were looking at cricketing, tourism and economic ties.

"India is a very special market, especially with the World Cup in mind and the exposure we will get in India, while the tournament is being played," he said. "It will be the greatest opportunity we will ever have and as a result, there have been a number of initiatives put in place to bridge some economic and business relationships with India. We will hope to develop some linkages so that we can really get going, because it is a very big market."

With most of the major sponsors of the tournament based in India, and Roach said this was part of the reason for making the trip as well. "We wanted to do an event where we could showcase our sponsors to one of the game's largest markets. As you know, we can't do without our sponsor and we are doing the event for them as well.

"We have a media following of over 120 already signed on and we are hoping to make the most of it. We were last in India in December and this is another opportunity to push the highlights of the region as we look forward to the showpiece event."