Comments on: Will the Olympics boost long-term tourism to BC?

By: Seth Klein

Seth Klein — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:24:46 +0000

Hi Paul

I recommend this 2003 CCPA report by David Green: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/olympic-impacts

Also, make sure you read the other CCPA blog posts on the economics of the Olympics. They are all to be found here:
http://www.policynote.ca/tag/olympics/

The CCPA is also working on a final cost-benefit analysis report with economist Marvin Shaffer. But that won’t be out for some time, once we have some final numbers in.

By: Paul Abbott

Paul Abbott — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:55:13 +0000

Can anyone suggest some empirical research on the economics of the Olympics that I might read?

By: Iglika Ivanova

Iglika Ivanova — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:10:51 +0000

An article in the February issue of BC Business Magazine opens with this pertinent quote:

“You can count on three things being true with the Winter Olympics: the initial cost estimates for staging the Games will be underestimated, the Games will almost certainly lose money and organizers will claim they made a profit.

Yet all this appears to be forgotten every four years when a new city hosts the Winter Games, which on a per capita basis actually cost more to put on than their summer equivalent.”

Why weren’t they writing these kinds of articles back in 2003 when the bid was being considered? And if this stuff is common knowledge, then why are so many cities/countries willing to bend over backwards in order to host the Olympics?

By: pwlg

pwlg — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:57:49 +0000

Back in the heady days of June 2002, the editor of the Western Investor, Frank O’Brien, wrote the following:

“When Jack Poole addressed a room full of developers this spring it erased any doubts of what the 2010 Winter Olympics bid for Vancouver-Whistler is really all about.

At the risk of sounding naive, we had understood the bid was aimed at getting the games, raising Vancouver’s international profile and welcoming elite athletes to one of the world’s best skiing locations.

Wrong. The real purpose of the 2010 Olympics bid is to seduce the provincial and federal governments and long suffering taxpayers into footing a billion dollar bill to pave the path for future real estate sales. Whether the bid is successful or not is actually immaterial.

“If the Olympic bid wasn’t happening we would have to invent something,” Poole, chair of the 2010 Vancouver Bid Corp. and a noted real estate developer said in a most telling understatement.

It is hard to imagine any fantasy that fits better than the Olympics bid if you are into real estate development.

Governments have to make big-time financial commitments right away if they are going to wow the International Olympic Committee members who will be in Vancouver next February to see if we are up to snuff.

The forum delegates were told that the following agreements have to be made within months; a billion dollar expansion of the Sea-to-Sky highway to a three lane freeway; a Skytrain link from Vancouver Int’l Airport to downtown Vancouver; and a new convention centre on the Vancouver waterfront next to the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre. And this is before we start building state-of-the-art sports facilities.

BC taxpayers, of course, will pay for all of this, even the vast majority who will not be able to afford to attend the games, let alone book into a fancy Whistler hotel.

The Olympic bid committee expects all these commitments to be in place by this fall with work actually under way very early in 2003.”"”

My comment: In fact, just a fews day before the Vancouver civic election December 2002, the NPA dominated council under Mayor Philip Owen slipped into the Mayor’s office in an in-camera meeting and signed a binder full of agreements tying any future council to obligations.

Currently, the City of Vancouver has invested/financed over $1 billion directly for venues…this does not include any staff time, which has been substantial. This is a far cry from former Mayor and now Senator Larry Campbell’s declaration to the citizens of Vancouver when he said the Games wouldn’t cost the City a penny. I guess he was right in a way!

Montreal’s debt was chicken feed compared to the Campbell clan’s spending.

By: pwlg

pwlg — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:30:54 +0000

In Utah during the 2002 Winter Games, sales tax receipts increased by less than 1% over the previous year.

More people left Salt Lake City’s airport than came in during the month of February 2002 (during the Winter Games).

Jones Lang LaSalle, a global real estate investment company reported that convention delegates to Olympic host cities increases a year after the Games but after that the number of delegates returns to the same rate as if a city hadn’t hosted the Games (summer Olympic host cities).

The Federal Government Hosting Policy states in bold letters:

ECONOMIC IMPACTS ARE NOT BENEFITS.

Money from one sector of the economy or from another place in the country is diverted…expenditure switching…nothing more…

Philip Porter in a study on mega sports events and economic impacts…the impacts appear to be due to price increases.

By: Ron Strand

Ron Strand — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:53:09 +0000

I think the most cynical move by the Liberals was when they announced a $10,000,000 cut in the Department of Families and Children. They made the press release the day the Olympics opened. Pretty cheezy.

By: Adrian Wilson

Adrian Wilson — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:48:38 +0000

Spontaneous Combustion Hay Fire? Worse than the chainlink fencing to seal off the Olympic cauldron from the tourists is the large snow covered haystacks on Cypress Mt . These were to be elevated viewing areas for paying spectators of the games.
Any rancher could have told you that once those bales got soaked with rain and melt water, they would begin to mould inside from microbial action and begin to heat. Now they’re probably so hot that no amount of helicoptering of snow to cover them can make them safe for fans. No wonder they are all bare now and 28,000 standing room tickets had to be cancelled due to unstable standing area.
Let’s just hope they don’t catch fire!

By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:46:25 +0000

Very interesting article, Seth, with lots of questions that unfortunately should have been asked long before we set off on this obscenely expensive road to the Games, a very large 17-day drunken party of great benefit to corporate sponsors – without whom no modern Olympic event could happen.

It’s not really even about athletic achievement anymore despite all the hoo hah. That’s what World Championships are for.

Economist Dr. Jeffrey Owen of Indiana State University has written about the myth promised by all those economic impact studies: the myth that says hosting the Olympics will be good for the host city because of all those new jobs, increased tourism and worldwide exposure. Not true, says Dr. Owen.

In fact, he joins other senior economists who waste no time in bursting that particular bubble when he writes:

“To date, there has not been a single study of an Olympics or other large-scale sporting event that has found empirical evidence of significant economic impacts.”

Dr. Owen’s research includes a very interesting look at every Olympic host city’s post-Games experience since 1896. Fascinating – yet depressing when you compare what the host cities’ organizing committees predicted with what actually happened post-Games.

More on Dr. Owen’s work at: http://ethicalnag.org/2010/02/14/olympics/

By: Mike Stewart

Mike Stewart — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:28:15 +0000

I live on Vancr. Island, where the ferry fares have gone up 40% since the advent of the phony-private ferry company – and another hike was announced just yesterday.
I can see no benefit from the Olympics for islanders, or anyone else outside of the Lower Mainland. All the (our) tax money was spent in the Richmond-to-Whistler corridor.
Your comment about help for homeless people in Vancouver struck a raw nerve. I am involved with a non-profit society whose goal is to end homelessness in our community. We are making some small progress, are getting huge support from local citizens, churches, and philanthropic groups, and more local businesses than I would have predicted.
We receive nothing whatever from the BC government, however. So the coming cuts won’t affect us – they can’t give us less than nothing.
The cuts will, of course, make the plight of the poor and homeless even more stark, and make the overall problems even more intractable. Is that a “benefit?”

By: Henry Hightower

Henry Hightower — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:19:14 +0000

Anybody remember Expo 86?
We were promised that it would boost tourism, forever and ever, as I remember it. And it was in the summer, and lasted many months.
All I recall of the result is that a Hong Kong billionaire made a killing by buying up the whole site.
Another megaproject legacy.

By: George

George — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:14:09 +0000

Excellent comments – right on the mark

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:12:07 +0000

I live in Victoria, (recently stated one of the most expensive places to live), and i certainly don’t see how the Olympics benefit anyone on the island. I can’t get over what a huge mishandlement (is that a word? ~_~) of time and money the Olympics are in a day and age with so many issues.

My own small thoughts on this, are that the only people who stand to really profit from the games are the corporate companies who already have amassed wealth.

I saw a great article in the TC ( http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/2010wintergames/rosy+craft+vendors/2575364/story.html) talking about local crafters who were led to believe that they would greatly benefit and paid around $1200.00 for a table. Well, with how expensive everything is, who can afford to support hand made goods?

And as for tourists, I’ve heard from a few friends in Vancouver that the security is almost tyrannical in its actions which is sure to leave a bad taste for some people.

By: David Huntley

David Huntley — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:19:06 +0000

The house at which my daughter and her children live is in one of the areas off-limits to parking for these two weeks unless the car is registered in the block.
After two long phone calls to city hall, a registered complaint, and some e-mails I eventually persuaded the City of Vancouveer parking authority to provide me with a permit to park in front of the house.
Two days ago I was visiting at the house when a relative from up the coast turned up unexpectedly. I had to shoo him away quickly as he had parked on the street. I told him why he had to leave, and he left quickly as he had seen a police car round the corner when he arrived.
If this is the way we have to treat visitors, it will not encourage them to return.

By: David Huntley

David Huntley — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:56:27 +0000

There’s a great article in this week’s Guardian Weekly (12.02.10, p.9) by Lucy Hyslop. It is accompanied by a picture of a homeless person lying on a sidewalk below a large sign that says ‘Welcome’.

By: Aleda

Aleda — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:32:42 +0000

If there are overall benefits it will only be to the Lower Mainland, not to the rest of BC. As a resident of a rural community and a Health Care worker I am pessimistic indeed about the financial effects of the Olympics. My personal solution is to vote with my dollar – find more ways of avoiding taxes: reusing items, bartering, buy used rather than new, buy only what is needed.