ECONOMIC
IMPACT OF THE 2010 WINTER GAMES
IX. The Current State of the Input
Data
The reliability of the outputs from this model will improve as
the cost and visitor data is refined. This will be an iterative
process as capital decisions, schedules, locations and programs are
crystallised by the VW2010 office and as the actual results of the
2002 Games in Salt Lake City unfold.
Pending these events, we have primed the model using the best
available data from the VW2010 office. It is important to note at
this stage that the cost estimates are and will remain preliminary
pending, confirmation of sites and verification of costs at those
sites.
We have also used a preliminary schedule of capital spending
which has all Games facilities completed and open by the end of 2008
to allow for testing, national team trials, World Championship
events and practice sessions in 2009. Salt Lake scheduled 13 World
events and three national team trials in its pre-Olympics year.
Staging the Olympic Games involves an extensive construction
program. It must be noted that the incremental economic benefits are
maximised with an orderly construction schedule which takes into
account other projects such as the proposed Vancouver Convention and
Exhibition Centre expansion project, a 48-month program in itself,
and major, on-going highways improvements in order to minimise cost
pressures in the construction sector. If imported construction
labour is required, the economic impact will be reduced to the
extent those workers spend their income outside the province.
With respect to tourism, we have primed the model with estimates
of potential tourism demand based on six growth scenarios. These
scenarios reflect the tourism growth profiles (the pattern of
growth, not the actual rate of growth) observed or expected from
other hallmark events including other summer and winter Games and
Expo 86 as well as our own estimates.
All of these scenarios result in economic impacts that fall
within the range described by the summary tables presented below.
The resulting bracketing of impacts defines a range of possible
incremental impacts of the 2010 Games. Four of the six scenarios
envisage tourism impacts starting in 2007 and ending in 2015, one
scenario assumes tourism impacts beginning as early as 2002 and
ending in 2015. The sixth scenario begins in 2002 and ends in 2020.
The tourism impacts are not necessarily limited to that period.
Arguably the tourism industry has been surfing on the crest of the
wave created by Expo 86 ever since but as we move further away
from the event year it becomes increasingly difficult to isolate the
continuing event impacts from other more recent events that may have
influenced tourism patterns.
These six tourism growth profiles result in cumulative incremental
foreign tourism volume gains, relative to the foreign visitor volume
in year 2000, ranging from a low of 0.33 million additional visitors
under the Low Effort/Low Response scenario to a high of about
3.7 million additional visitors under the Best Effort/Best
Response scenario. The incremental visitors are calculated as
the difference between the base year (2000) total and the current
year. Hence, if the base year total is 100 and the next three years'
totals are 110, 105, 115, the cumulative incremental gain amount to
30. The nomenclature Low, Average, Better and Best is
used to reflect the cumulative outcome of the scenario, not
the starting point, end point or peak growth rate of the scenario.
Five of these growth profiles assume the international awareness
of British Columbia created by the Games exposure fades out after
2015. The sixth scenario (Best Effort/Best Response), assumes
the marketing impact is sufficiently broad and deep as to
permanently raise international awareness of British Columbia as a
tourism destination. To put these projected gains in perspective,
incremental foreign tourism visits to British Columbia rose about
2.8 million in the Expo 86 year alone compared to the immediate
pre-Expo year, 1985. During the first five post-Expo years, 1987 -
1991, the cumulative incremental gains, excluding the Expo year,
amounted to about 4.1 million foreign visitors relative to the 1985
level. In the first 10 post-Expo years the cumulative incremental
gain was 13.6 million foreign visitors.
This first chart plots the four growth profiles used in the
summary tables below. As explained above, the plotted points
represent incremental growth relative to the base year 2000. For
example, the Best Effort scenario peaks in 2010 at about
500,000 more visitors in that year than British Columbia received in
2000.
Again, to put these growth scenarios into some historical context
in terms of the scale of the tourism impacts considered in this
Games evaluation, the chart on the left presents the
actual incremental foreign visitor profile surrounding Expo 86
overlaid on the visitor profile scenarios used for impact of the
2010 Games.
The table below provides the actual incremental rates used in the
four tourism profiles described above. As described elsewhere, the
calculation represents the additional foreign visitors expected to
be attracted to the province in a given year by the Games-related
exposure, relative to the base value in year 2000.
In 2000, British Columbia attracted 8,481,727 foreign visitors.
Hence a 2% increment under the Average Effort scenario for
2008 would represent 2% of the year 2000 base, or about 169,634
additional visitors.
Finally, as the table illustrates, the Low
Effort scenario represents the lowest cumulative impact at
11.01% while the Best Effort represents the highest
cumulative impact at 43.5%.
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