HAS LORD SIR SEBASTIAN COE OVER-ESTIMATED THE TOURISM BOOST TO LONDON?

Sebastian Coe’s prediction of a huge boost to tourism in London could be drastically wide of the mark, according to precedents of Sydney, Athens, and Beijing.

The last three Olympic venues anticipated far larger numbers of tourists than, in fact, there actually were.

And when you think about it, of course, it is not particularly surprising. Unless you are directly involved in one of the sports or widely enthusiastic about it, you’d be as well to avoid the actual games. After all, in most countries, probably every country, there is first class television coverage and events can be enjoyed perhaps more clearly than from the back of a stadium.

For all the money spent on the facilities and infrastructure (and that has been a vast amount) there will always be too many people in one place at one time during events like this. In the case of London I can’t imagine that transport, for example, would be able to cope with much more in the way of numbers. The already creaking tube (metro) service will be pushed to breaking point; buses and taxis likewise.

Cost comes into it too. Every country hit by the recent financial problems is going to be making some sort of cuts. People may also wonder, given the severity of the British cuts, what they might be coming to. Travel to London may be more than people will be able to afford in 2012, and certainly the cost of staying in London is horrendously high by comparison say with Paris, Luxembourg, Edinburgh, Brussels and even Geneva. In my own experience hotels have worked out at around twice the price in London, and the service and quality of accommodation is markedly lower. Olympic organizers and Mayor Boris Johnson have an uphill struggle to convince travellers that London will be affordable and they have appealed to hotels not to try and cash in by increasing their prices. However, business is business and it is bound to happen.

Other tourists tend to stay away during the period of the Olympics, anticipating that the hotels will be crowded and facilities stretched, and this affects the whole of the UK, because so many holidays begin and end in London with tours to other places, including Scotland, in between. The European Tour Operators’ Association pointed out that Athens has a far lower profile than London, yet when its visitor arrivals dropped by 6% in the Olympic year, regional Greece fell by 11%. It is not only a London problem.

Of course the Dept of Media and Sport have rubbished the worries. They say that no one seriously believes that any tourist accommodation will remain unfilled during the Games themselves. The Games, they say, are a “long-term investment in the future of Britain's visitor economy and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enhance the image of the UK as a visitor destination”.

But then they would, wouldn’t they?

Incidentally, has anyone heard if the Olympic Games will have to undergo a 25%-40% reduction in cost?