Local organisers have gone the extra mile to make the 2013 Natwest Island Games “affordable” for all visiting countries.According to an article published in the Isle of Wight County Press, fears have been raised that attendance could be low at next year’s Games in Bermuda because of the prohibitive travel costs.“There is no doubt Bermuda presents problems because of the costs involved,” Isle of Wight Island Games chairman David Ball was quoted as saying in the article.However, Jon Beard, chairman of the local organising committee for the Games, said every effort was being made to lower travel, accommodation and transportation costs for all visiting countries.“When we made the bid for the Games we made it very clear what our situation was and we are working as hard as we possibly can to get the prices down to make Bermuda as affordable for as many people as we can,” he said. “We have tried to help as much as we can because we understand for a lot of countries this is their first venture outside of Europe so it’s a big step.”In response to the Isle of Wight County Press article, Beard said: “I think it’s just the press looking for a story because all of the Island Games secretaries and the sports involved have been told of what we have done in terms of bringing costs down.”For starters Beard said local organisers have been working with airlines in the hope of lowering travel costs for countries to fly here.“We are working with a company out of the UK to do the best we can for airfares,” he added. “We are looking at charters, looking at scheduled airlines and how best to do this and there are all sorts of variables we are working on.“Whenever we’ve travelled elsewhere it’s not as if anybody has tried to arrange our airfare for us, it’s always been our responsibility. But that’s fair enough because everyone has to pay their own airfare.”Beard said certain local hotels have offered “great rates” to visiting countries. He also said a number of schools would be used to house visiting athletes to further lower accommodation costs.“We have Warwick Camp which will be used and again that will bring costs down,” he said. “We are also using CedarBridge Academy, Saltus and Warwick Academy as dormitory-type rooms which again brings costs down significantly.”Beard said great detail had also been paid to transportation to help bring down costs and avoid creating “major problems” getting the athletes to their respective sporting venues.“The other biggest issue is we have to be conscious of the costs to ourselves and transportation because if you are trying to move 800 people from Fairmont Southampton on a Monday morning to get them to the National Sports Centre (NSC) by 9am you are going to struggle to find the buses and create a major problem getting into the stadium,” he said.“So if we’ve got people up at CedarBridge using the accommodation, particularly for track and field, swimming, football and basketball then you take the transportation issue out of it.“And if the tennis players were at Saltus then they can walk across the road to the Tennis Stadium.“What we are trying to do is help the Island and obviously make sure we are not going to create an issue with transportation and accommodation which has been the two biggest issues at every Games.”The Games will be held in Bermuda from July 13-19 at the NSC, Berkeley Institute School, Mount Saint Agnes School, Bermuda College, the WER Joell Tennis Stadium, Bermuda Athletic Association, BFA Field, Bermuda Gymnastics Association, Warwick Camp and Spanish Point Boat Club.