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The Chinese national government spent more than 40 billion dollars on the recent Beijing Olympics, a sport event which spanned just two weeks and mobilized the entire nation’s energies. After any event of such enormous proportions successfully comes to a close a range of questions relating to its effect on the future are bound to arise. Are Chinese feeling more cosmopolitan now than before and will this impact on how they travel? Have they more confidence to travel abroad knowing how well their country's athletes performed on the international stage? Did the Olympics stimulate more demand for sports themed tours and holidays both at home and abroad? Does the rest of the world have a better understanding of China now and is more likely to visit? Will the Olympic Village become the latest white elephant or find a sustainable use? These issues will be addressed in keynote speeches and panel discussions at 'China-the Future of Travel', the WTM-ChinaContact forum on November 12 in World Travel Market, Excel, and London. Experienced experts including tourism officials, academics and private sector professionals will look at the events of the past year and their short and long term effects on tourism to and from China. The international media seemed to admire China's logistical performance in staging the Games while criticizing some of the measures that were taken to ensure a smooth run. These measures included clearing the city of potential troublemakers, taking half the cars off the road, not allowing any protests, and the implementation of heavy security measures at airports and transport terminals. The security measures made touring around the country difficult and less pleasant. Visa application prior to the Olympics was made harder and put off prospective tourists not heading to the Olympics. As a result Beijing and China received fewer tourists this summer than in the previous year and many travel companies are suffering losses. We can look back at a successful and memorable Olympics for the sporting accomplishments and the management of the event. But what about the tourism benefits that the Olympics are supposed to bring to the host?
Arguably China should have benefited most from hosting the Games in the area of inbound tourism. China may have missed out on this opportunity to an extent since the experience of visitors to the Olympics contained little of China's rich culture and tourism treasures. Although the majority of visitors would have visited Beijing, the Great Wall and the Forbidden City and perhaps even watched a Chinese acrobatics show, the best of China's diverse culture was not on display during the games. During the Olympics there was a focus on uniformity and unity which was probably a decision made based on the dissent shown in Tibet earlier in the year but it was a shame for the world not to see the rich diversity of people in China. Although China boasts one of the richest culinary traditions in the world with each of its 23 provinces providing its own distinct culinary culture, the food on offer during the games was dismal. During the Olympics, open-air food markets were closed for hygiene reasons and most tourists on package tours ate western food. When it comes to outbound tourism from China, it is possible that the Chinese have gained confidence from hosting such a successful Olympic event which saw their country top the gold medal tables. Many countries that took part in the Olympics used the opportunity to promote their tourism resources through trade receptions and media campaigns linked to the Games. Post-Olympics, it is likely the government will announce further relaxation of the tourism sector and allow more foreign companies licenses to operate in China. A spate of mergers and acquisitions will also eventuate due to the global economy slow down and large losses to travel related companies in China in the wake of the Olympics. The growth of tourism, however, is likely to continue and will be faster in China than anywhere else, on track to meet UN-WTO targets for largest tourism destination by 2015 and largest source market by 2020.
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