"The Volvo Ocean Race is by far the world's premier global race. It's a great honour to have Miami selected as a featured stopover," said Commission Chairman Marc Sarnoff.
The race village will be located at Bicentennial Park, on the Biscayne Bay, in the heart of Downtown Miami. It is a 29-acre, open park which is suited for major events and has been used in the past for shows such as the Cirque Du Soleil.
"We are very confident Miami will deliver a first class event for us in the spring of 2012 and the people of Florida will welcome us to their shores once again," Volvo Ocean Race CEO, Knut Frostad, said in a release.
“I was here in 2001-2002 and it looks very different today,” he added. "This waterfront looks to be one of the best locations around the planet and I'm sure Miami will give us a wonderful stopover."
The next Volvo Ocean Race will start in the Spanish port of Alicante in the autumn of 2011 and finish in Galway, Ireland during the summer of 2012. The State of Florida has a long association with the event, having hosted the event four times previously: Ft Lauderdale 1989-90, 1993-94,1997-98, Miami 2001-02.
Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, Sanya, Lisbon, Lorient and Itajai in Brazil have already been confirmed as stopover ports, with further host cities to be revealed by the end of March.
Google News