Economic Benefits Of The Olympics example essay topic

Economic Aspects and the Summer Olympics: A Review of the Related Research Page 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to gratefully acknowledge and thank Prof. John Hudson, Dr. Peter Dawson, Adam George-Wood, Nikos Vera ros, Martha McIntosh for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Special thanks also to two anonymous referees who provided substantial and constructive comments. Finally, the author would like to acknowledge the Manpower Employment Organisation in Athens, Greece for helping fund this research. Any remaining errors or omissions are the author's alone. Page 2 Page 3 ABSTRACT As the Summer Olympics are growing with larger media coverage and sponsorship, host cities have started to attach great importance to the tourism and other likely economic effects occurred by staging such a special event.

As a result, a number of studies have been conducted to consider the various economic implications on the hosts. This paper examines and evaluates methods and assumptions employed by the economic studies. It also compares ex-ante models and forecasts with the ex-post approach. The aim is to improve the information available to policy makers and potential future hosts of Summer Olympics and other mega-events. Keywords: Mega-events; Summer Olympics; Economic Impact Analysis Page 3 Page 4 INTRODUCTION The modern Olympic Games were first held in Athens in 1896. Over the years, the Games survived many trials including wars and boycotts, and each set of Games is held every four years.

In recent years, the interest of countries and regions in staging a future edition of the Games has grown because of the perception that doing so would help attract tourists and generate income. As well as the likely impacts on the socio-cultural and environmental areas, host cities place great emphasis on the economic implications of the Olympics and the tourism development. These implications have received increasing attention over the last two decades, involving economic studies to provide a measure of the net gains which hosting the Games may provide. While economic impact analyses prepared by or on behalf of Olympic advocates have demonstrated economic advantages from hosting the Games, potential host communities pose the question of whether, in fact, the economic benefits of the Olympics are pragmatic and, if they are, the extent to which such benefits offset the costs (Hoxton, 1999). Much of the published literature of the Olympics emphasises long-term benefits such as newly constructed event facilities and infrastructure, urban revival, enhanced international reputation, increased tourism, as well as improved public welfare, additional employment, local business opportunities and corporate relocation (Ritchie and Aitken, 1985; Hall, 1987; Kang, 1988; Robin, 1988; Wall, 1996; French and Dishes, 1997). In contrast, potential negative impacts include high construction costs of public sports infrastructure and related necessary investments (usually putting a heavy Page 4.