Do the Olympics hurt or help international tourism?

With the Olympic games being one of the most sort after international events the world has ever experienced, many would argue that the games, combined with their publicity, fervor and global appeal, would truly help their host city’s economic stature. Tourism alone should boom due to the Olympics, while locales that would typically not seem to be a “top destination” are suddenly thrust into the limelight.

However, according to a study by the European Tour Operators Association (ETOA), the Olympic Games actually have a negative impact on their host locale. Over the last 20 years,  tourism has actually increased throughout the globe, except for travel to “Olympic cities,” where tourism growth tends to be stalled (especially when compared to competitor destinations).

For instance, during the past 6 summer games – Beijing 2008, Athens 2004, Sydney 2000, Atlanta (1996, Barcelona 1992, and Seoul 1988 – all six host cities experienced a major disruption to their normal tourism market and none revealed any conspicuous tourism growth.

In the five years prior to the Sydney Olympics, Australia’s and New Zealand’s tourism was growing at the same rate. However,  but Australia’s growth dropped off significantly immediately after the Olympics. It is clear that the Olympics did not materially help Australian tourism, or if it did, it made very little difference.

Sydney’s even underperformed against the rest of Australia. The situation became so pronounced that Australia ran an advertising campaign to promote itself as a destination with the now infamous slogan “Where the bloody hell are you?”

Perhaps the most alarming statistics come out of the Beijing 2008 games. During the month prior to the games’ commencement, international travel to Beijing plummeted to 30% less than the previous year. In the months after the Games, the tourism slump continued with international travel over 20% down.

In fact, 2008 was a dismal year for Asia Pacific tourism, with Beijing bearing the brunt of the hurt. While travel was down to mainland China by 2%, Beijing averaged out at an 18% loss over 2007.

Concern for London

“Every city is unique, and each city handles the Olympics in its own way,” said Tom Jenkins, executive director, ETOA. “But we have yet to have a games where tourism has not been disrupted and disrupted in a way that causes real harm. Even in the case of Athens, where they carefully restricted new capacity, there were considerable losses before and after the games both in the capital and throughout Greece.”

This does not bode well for London in 2012.

Last year alone, London experienced almost 15 million international visitors. If history repeats itself, the city could be looking at a loss of nearly 2.5 million tourists.

Generally, the Olympics should benefit a host city’s tourism economy. However, statistics suggest otherwise. What do you think – do the Olympics ultimately negatively impact the host city’s tourism economy? And if so, what can be done?