Co-ordinated strategy needed to prevent Olympics tourism slump

The government is being urged to create a co-ordinated strategy to mitigate potentially damaging impact on tourism of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

The call came from the European Tour Operators Association which released a report countering previous claims that countries see tourism benefit from hosting the Olympics.

The ETOA report, published a yer after London won the Olympic bid, demonstrates that countries who host the Olympic Games suffer from a drop in tourism growth in the years surrounding the event.  There is no long-term boost to tourism, as has been widely asserted, the association claims.

In the case of Australia, a trend of over 10% growth in visitor arrivals turned into a decline two years before the Sydney Olympics. The stagnation persisted for more than two years after.  By comparison, New Zealand experienced steadily improving tourism growth throughout the past decade. In the five years prior to the Olympics, Australia’s and New Zealand’s tourism was growing at the same rate but Australia’s growth lost ground significantly straight after the Olympics.

A similar ‘Olympic Effect’ is also apparent for four out of the last five Olympics – in Sydney 2000, Atlanta 1996, Barcelona 1992 and Seoul 1988.

ETOA’s research also disproves claims that the beneficial impact of the Olympics needs to be measured over a longer period of time. Taking Barcelona as an example, longer-term tourism growth since the Games has been outstripped by other comparable European cities, such as Prague and Dublin.

Official statistics for the years after the Athens Olympics are not yet available. But the pattern appears to be the same, ETOA said. In 2002, two years before the Olympics, arrivals in Greece were 8.2% up on the previous year but in 2003, numbers fell by 1.5%. This decline continued until the first part of 2004.  One month before the start of the Games, visitor arrivals were 12% down.

 ETOA called for:

*A commitment not to burden the tourism industry with any additional tax

*A national marketing campaign with an appropriate budget to smooth out the inevitable post Olympic dip

*Specific communication to make the point that London is able to absorb the Games without difficulty and that it will be open for tourist business as usual throughout 2012

*Initiatives and marketing communication in the years running up to the Games to counteract fears that London will be full, over-priced or ‘otherwise engaged’, possibly detailing how much is open and the bargains available

*Arrangements to give ‘Olympic visitors’ a full tourism experience whilst they are in the UK for the Games

ETOA suggested that many of the prior reports have been based on aggregated opinion looking forward to the future rather than on objective fact, looking back on past experience and have been funded by organizations wishing to promote the Games.

ETOA executive director Tom Jenkins denied being ‘anti-Olymics’ and told TravelMole: “I am sure the Olympics will be a wonderful party but we must be realistic about the impact. What it does not do is lead to a boost in tourism.”

He said any suggestions of cashing in through a bed tax should be dismissed straight away.

“We have to think how to persuade people that London is going to be open for business as normal during 2012.”

Referring to the report, Jenkins added: “These findings may seem surprising because during the Games the city’s hotels are full. But this situation is short-lived. Olympic visitors tend not to be big consumers of sightseeing excursions; neither are they committed visitors to museums, historic monuments and other classic tourist attractions. 

“The presence of the Olympics deters regular tourists: they perceive that the city will be full, disrupted, congested and over-priced.  A reduction in the numbers of regular tourists halts the conveyor belt of satisfied customers bringing more visitors. The ‘word of mouth’ falls silent. In theory this should be replaced by an eager television audience. In practice it is not.”

He added: “The Olympic Games do not turn tourists into sports fans or sports fans into tourists. Locations such as Wembley (soccer), Wimbledon (tennis) and Kennington (cricket) are not non-sporting tourist destinations; they are not and will not become centres of tourism.

“London is a great tourist city.  Action must be taken to ensure its continued growth is not disrupted by the Olympics.”

The International Olympic Committee’s claims about media exposure have been “hyperbolic” too, ETOA suggested. IOC president Jacques Rogge said on CBS in October 2004 that the total cumulative world television audience – with viewers counted each time they watched – was around 40 billion for the Athens Olympics. 

Such numbers do not stand up to scrutiny, according to ETOA. There are roughly 6.5 billion people on the planet. Of these, 1.6 billion have no access to electricity and a further 400 million are less than five years old. To achieve a cumulative audience of 40 billion involves nearly three billion people (or 60% of the available world) watching every single day of the games. Detailed viewing data from the IOC itself for Sydney suggest that the total number watching “peak time” was 280 million. Even if this number is multiplied up by the number of days the games is open, the audience size would only be a tenth of that claimed by enthusaists.

Report by Phil Davies