It would appear hosting the Winter Olympics is not as attractive as it used to be with another city giving the event the cold shoulder.
Swedish capital city Stockholm has pulled out of the race to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, so too has Krakow in Poland, and Lviv in Ukraine. Now we hear that Oslo too have withdrawn from the bidding race.
That leaves just two contenders, Almaty in Kazakhstan where corruption is said to be rife and Beijing which is at least 120 miles from a mountain that can be skied down. It may well be if both cities are not suitable that the IOC will have to revisit a ready made former host such as Vancouver.
Many close to process are claiming that the cost is no longer viable, and that this is the reason why many of those initially interested in hosting the event have withdrawn. As a recent report has shown, hosting major events does not have the knock-on effect that the public are often led to to believe.
For example the Sydney Olympics had very little bonus to Australia as many in the world already knew that Australia was safe, and Sydney was a beautiful city. South Africa host of the 2010 FIFA World Cup missed an opportunity to promote the country being safer than perceived as was proven during the World Cup. Sadly very few host nations have a promotion plan post major events and therefore the benefits of hosting such an event are wasted. Government’s the world over are so focussed on the projected tourist figures during the time of the event that they miss the opportunity to reap long term benefits. Possibly those who have pulled out have read this report and feel such promotion would be an added cost with no guarantee of a return on investment.
The times they are certainly a-changing.
