The Olympics Will Not Benefit UK Tourism
It might bring a lot of money into the country short term, but a new report shows that the UK won’t be rolling in tourist cash (well, an increase of tourist cash) thanks to the upcoming Olympics.
Indeed, disproving a commonly held notion, the study found 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.
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. With regard to Athens, official statistics for the years after the Games are not yet available. However the pattern appears to be the same. 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.
The full article from the ETOA can be found here.
