Introduction
The 2012 London Olympic Games, lasting from 25 July to 12 August 2012, was one of the largest events ever hosted in the UK. During this world-wide sport event, 4 billion people watched the opening ceremonies on television; more than 10,000 athletes from over 200 countries participated; 20 million people visited the city; and approximately $14 billion were generated (Kubo, 2014).
For London and UK, hosting this mega-sport event provide them a great opportunity to boom the tourism industry to stimulate local economy when facing the global economic recession, especially in Europe. Although London didn’t outline specific tourism objective for the Games in its bidding documentation, London clearly stated its tourism objectives
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Also, DCMS built on Our Promise for 2012, in which the fifth promise was to demonstrate the UK is a creative, inclusive and welcoming place to live in, visit and for business. To achieve this promise, DCMS stated the plan that make the most of the long-term tourism benefits that the Games will bring nationwide (Our promise for 2012, 2015). As the nature of international tourism is exported service and goods, which has a significant proportion of economic outcome in tourism industry, this paper is aimed to analyse the impact of 2012 London Olympic Games on the inbound tourism in London and the UK. The impacts of the 2012 London Olympic Games on inbound tourism can cover a wide range of aspects, including service improvement, infrastructure improvement, star-hotel increase, tourist flows and so on; nevertheless, this paper will only focus on two aspects: overseas visitor arrivals and spending and destination image improvement.
Literature Review
After the 1984 Los Angeles Games showed for the first time that mega-events could produce an economic surplus, mega-sport events, particularly the Olympic Games, acquired central status for city and national government development agendas (Andranovich, Burbank and Heying, 2001). And the appeal of hosting a mega-event, or more specifically a mega-sport event, has grown significantly over the
The Olympic games originated in Athens in 776 B.C. The more popular modern day Olympic games began nearly 2300 years later in 1896. The games no longer represented a religious festival, but a sports competition instead. The games can be studied via multiple aspects such as political, social, and economic, but this paper will concentrate on the economic aspect of the games and more specifically, the macroeconomic impacts the games possess.
London is currently hosting the Olympics this year and in preparation back in 2009 the event was predicted to “provide economic gold at a time of economic need,” however hosting the Olympics is an extremely costly business with the upgrades, new sports facilities, and security that it will cost much, much more than expected.
There are direct impacts to the environment for every sport event that happened, be it small scale or global. Mega –sport events are progressing every now and then since they are stimulators of major programs of improvement and regeneration for means of expressing the personality and enhancing the status of cities that are holding these events. Mega-sport events are then catalysts of development and change of the venues both in the local and national level (James and Dodours,
The Olympics were revived in 1896 thanks to Pierre de Coubertin. Since its reemergence in 1896, the modern Olympic movement has been shaped and influenced politically through the tensions between countries, economically through financial gain opportunity, and socially by promoting women’s rights. Another document I would like to have seen would be one containing a record of third world countries that have attended the Olympics. This document would have shown how wealth effects and shapes the modern Olympics.
As a sporting mega-event, the Olympic Games have numerous social impacts on the people, not only on those from the host country, but on individuals all over the globe.
The Olympic Games are recognized globally by billions of people. This event is the biggest sporting event not only because it comes once every four years, but also because the world’s best athletes come together to compete for world fame and glory. Hosting the games seems like an honor for most people, however there is numerous risks involved
In late 2005, Olympic host city was internationally known to be London for 2012 Games. Unfortunately, it is the same period when terrorist activities wreaked havoc in London. (Nugent et al. 2011) Perhaps, this was a wakeup call for the government to revise and tighten on all issues that would lead to risk loophole.
Countries utilize both the vast market and the attractiveness to increase ticket sales, sales in merchandise and tourism in their country. For the 2012 Olympic in London, it was estimated that 471,000 people visited from overseas primarily for the Olympic/Paralympics. ("Visits to the UK for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympics - ONS", 2013, p. xx-xx) Not only does the country benefit from the ticket sales, but other businesses in the city (Hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc.) will flourish in business due to all the international trades that are occurring. The Olympic also provide jobs since the preparation, and the execution of the event requires a large staff as well as people with different skills. (Performers, construction workers, marketers, designers, etc.) Thanks to the Olympics, the United Kingdom saw a boost of £9.9 Billion ($17,805,486,600 CAD) in trades and investments. ("London 2012 Olympics 'have boosted UK economy by £9.9bn'", 2013) Hosting the Olympics can also make a psychological impact. With the great success Japan had in hosting the 1964 Olympics, (the first Asia Olympics as well as a method of being reaccepted by the rest of the world after World War Two), news that Japan will be hosting the Olympics 2020 significantly brought their citizen’s morale up after being hit with
Tourism plays a vital role in economic development in most countries around the world. The industry has not only direct economic impact, but also significant indirect and influential impacts. There is agreement among experts that the travel and tourism sector is the fastest growing of global economy. According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, international tourism receipts surpass US$ 1 trillion in 2011, growing about 3.8%up from 2010 (WTO, 2012).
Britain has been over the news due to the British exit the European Union, which this event is known as Brexit (Hunt, 2016). This decision brought a large impact on every country in Britain, but the Britain has not started negotiate with European Union about adapting regulations to minimize their negative consequences. Before people can list potential impacts of Brexit on Britain’s tourism, it is important for people to understand how well the Britain was doing in the tourism industry. In addition, it is important to analyze and understand what type of tourism impacts on Britain. So, people would know how Brexit will change its policy and what impacts will bring to their current life. It will provide an idea of how the changes of regulations will impact different countries and the region. Thus, it provides an understanding of how tourism helps to develop the Britain in terms of environmental impacts, socio-cultural impacts, and economic impacts.
We are working very hard with tourism businesses across England to maintain this momentum, and to ensure that the industry can benefit from the opportunities presented by the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Torch Relay and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This is an unprecedented year – it is our job to inspire Brits that now is the time to take a holiday at home.”
The legacy of the 2012 London Olympic Games left a lasting impression on the world stage. After all, the opening and closing ceremonies, and the games themselves were an unforgettable experience for millions of people across the globe. However, it was the host city and the British Isles that truly benefited from this monumental event.
After the Beijing Olympic game in 2008, many people raise the questions of whether spending $41 billion in hosting the game bring benefits to China’s economic or not. According to the nature of economic, the economic impacts of the Olympic game are hard to measure and has became a major debating topic for many economic scholars. However, one thing that we are sure off is that the Olympic game did tie on to many economic measures such as, employment rate, economic growth rate, inflation rate and tourism growth rate. Also, as we know from the economic standpoint, fiscal and monetary policies are inevitable measures in hosting mega event like the Beijing Olympic game.
After researching the impacts events have on regional development I have come to agree with the statement ‘The events industry is an effective and appropriate vehicle for facilitation of regional development’. The significance of this thesis is to critically discuss and demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the events industry and regional development while also providing an understanding of the history of events and the increasing significance of the event industry in contemporary society. Real life examples from around the world are used to recognize and justify the event industry as part of the tourism sector and explore specific implications to event management. Various sectors of the events industry are identified
Olympic Games, as a global event, any Olympic Games will have a different impact on the environment, society, culture and economy of the host city and country. Especially since the 1980s, with the scale continues to expand, the impact of the Games on the host city and country of more concern. Another important issue will be social communities. For Olympic Games host city, it will has lots of change, like environment, social communities, local economic, etc.… But the host city still got something attractions and cultural staff. For example, Canada Whistler Winter Olympic Games, First, because of economic development, job opportunities increase, leading to increased consumer demand. Second, the Olympic Games will have a great demand for