What will the Vancouver 2010 Olympics do to the economy?
Jan
26
I live in Vancouver, and I’m wondering about what the Olympics are going to do to our economy. Is it true, that they will be spending immense amounts of money for this? Are British Colombians going to have to pay for it with raised taxes?
See, I’ve only just turned 14 in September, and when I attempt to ask teachers they say, "The Olympics are great! Be proud of the Olympics! Be a proud Canadian!"
But I’d like some honest answers that I would understand.
Thank you :].
Vanoc has already been assured (by the IOC) at least breaking even for the games budget. That’s one big risk factor taken out since the governement was required to cover any losses from actually operating the games. The immense amounts of money spent are talking about mainly infrastructure costs. Depending on your opinion, those should have been done anyways. Such as the upgrades to the Sea to Sky highway which gets a lot of traffic and has a lot of accidents. The upgrade was needed anyways, but that $600 million is counted by some as an expense related to the games. Same for the Canada Line for the Skytrain. A similar amount was spent on that. We had no good way to get from the airport to downtown so it was needed, but many have considered it a games related expense. Same again for the close to $1 Billion convention center upgrade that may or may not have happened if not for the Olympics. Lastly is the Olympic village. The city has a huge amount that it spent on the village. It’s yet to be seen how much of that they can recoup when they sell off the units there but speculation at this point is that they will lose money.
Hopefully the above shows that losing money on the Olympics is not a straight forward question. Two completely honest people will give opposite answers just based on their opinion of what is an "Olympic Expense" and what was needed regardless of the Olympics. My opinion is that these projects were all long overdue and so if it took an Olympics to get them done – great!
As for the economic benefit, the predictions vary widely but it will be very substantial. A lot of entra money will be coming in over the years due to the new infrastructure and the new exposure that the Olympics brings. Definitely in the hundreds of millions over time.
January 26th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
i was 13 when the 2002 games where in my city
it was awesome,
i didnt know what the ecomony was at the time
but they were alot of people, for those few weeks the worlds gonna be watching you
so yeah lookin back now there was an eco boost
business’s were packed,
like those "roots" hat, they were so hard to get, had to wait over an hour to get them.
it was awesome, go out alot, and see as much as you can
References :
January 26th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Well, according to this, the tickets are sold out:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280442426752&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT
That means a lot of folks are coming to the city so they’ll spend money on hotels, food, etc. I’m thinking of bidding on some tickets on ebay myself so I can go.
References :
January 26th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Vanoc has already been assured (by the IOC) at least breaking even for the games budget. That’s one big risk factor taken out since the governement was required to cover any losses from actually operating the games. The immense amounts of money spent are talking about mainly infrastructure costs. Depending on your opinion, those should have been done anyways. Such as the upgrades to the Sea to Sky highway which gets a lot of traffic and has a lot of accidents. The upgrade was needed anyways, but that $600 million is counted by some as an expense related to the games. Same for the Canada Line for the Skytrain. A similar amount was spent on that. We had no good way to get from the airport to downtown so it was needed, but many have considered it a games related expense. Same again for the close to $1 Billion convention center upgrade that may or may not have happened if not for the Olympics. Lastly is the Olympic village. The city has a huge amount that it spent on the village. It’s yet to be seen how much of that they can recoup when they sell off the units there but speculation at this point is that they will lose money.
Hopefully the above shows that losing money on the Olympics is not a straight forward question. Two completely honest people will give opposite answers just based on their opinion of what is an "Olympic Expense" and what was needed regardless of the Olympics. My opinion is that these projects were all long overdue and so if it took an Olympics to get them done – great!
As for the economic benefit, the predictions vary widely but it will be very substantial. A lot of entra money will be coming in over the years due to the new infrastructure and the new exposure that the Olympics brings. Definitely in the hundreds of millions over time.
References :