History shows that one of the greatest honors any city can receive is to be selected as host for the Olympic Games. The selection is the result of a long process that can be as grueling and dramatic as much of the competition that takes place in the Olympics! Only after years of campaigning, promotion and considerable effort is a city finally chosen to host the Olympic Games.
However, once the honor has been bestowed, the real work begins. Each chosen Olympic host must prepare itself to be the sports and cultural epicenter of the world for a period of time. They must be ready for a dramatic influx of new visitors, be prepared to host athletes and workers, and have the facilities necessary to stage all of the events that make the Olympic Games what they are: the biggest spectacle in all of sport.
Beijing gets ready
In the case of Beijing, China, many preparations had to be made to make the city “Olympics ready”. Many new venues were constructed, all of which are state of the art and incredibly expensive. For years, construction crews and architects worked incredibly hard to construct such venues as Beijing’s National Stadium, the National Indoor Stadium, the National Aquatics Center, and other structures that will play host to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
At a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars for each facility, and with a workforce of thousands striving to complete the construction involved, the venues finally became a reality. Officials within Beijing would certainly have breathed a sigh of relief when the completed venues were finally revealed: after all, it’s not as if the Olympic Games can be postponed if construction takes longer than planned!
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The venues themselves need to be easily accessible through public transportation. The kind of mass migration of people that the Olympic Games create is hard for any city to prepare for, but it must be done. City officials must make sure that public transportation is optimized and altered to reflect the influx of people and the change in routes that will lead to more and more visitors going to Olympic venues.
Hotels in Beijing have also had to be on their toes. The minute the decision to award the Olympic Games was made, calls started to come in as fans wanted to be a part of the historic action. Even in surrounding areas, hotels are booked well ahead of time, and hotels have had to be prepared, well-staffed, and ready for anything as visitors from all over the world will soon arrive to be witness to sports history in the making.
Cash-Cow Olympics
A well organized Olympic Games can be very, very profitable. The committee of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games revealed a profit of US$167 million. In addition to the profit made by the official games through ticket sales etc, restaurants, shops, and other businesses must be prepared for an amount of people that they have never previously seen before. All of the people who come to be a part of the Olympic Games will need to eat, sleep and purchase. In the months leading up to the games, parking, staffing, and other issues have become important as the time draws near and businesses try to prepare for the chaos that will surely ensue.
Of course, no restaurant owner, hotelier or shopkeeper is going to complain when they double or triple their usual profits as Olympic fans flock to their establishment. Even if the preparation can be stressful, the increase in tourism that results during, and even after each installment of the Olympic Games is a truly wonderful thing for area businesses.
Ready to go
There is a lot of work to be done when a city is chosen to host the Olympic Games. The people of Beijing have worked very hard to make sure that their city is a suitable host for such a world stage, and it’s likely that they are very excited to show off all of that hard work in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
VISIT THE OLYMPICS
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
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