London Olympics, 2012: What does it mean to host the “Largest Event in the World?!”

Speakers : Barbara Jamison from London & Partners and James Rees Director of Conferences & Events for London International Conference Center of ExCel.

During the EIBTM Trade show, we went to a conference about the London Olympics 2012 legacy. The main purpose of this conference was to answer several questions such as “How can this mega-event re-establish London as a Major Event’s destination?”, “How will it unlock London’s potential for future business?”, or “What will be the legacy of the games and how do we capitalize on new business opportunities such as “Tech City”, new developments, infrastructure, hotel and venue space and the Olympic Park?”…

Barbara Jamison works at London & Partners, the official promotional organisation for the London Olympics. Its main role is to attract and deliver value to business, students and visitors. London and Partner is a merge between the former Visit London, Think London and Study London.

They are closely working with the main stakeholder of the Olympics: LOCOG, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympics which is in charge of the organisation of the event.

She started by giving us some key figures for the Olympics. The event will take place in London from July 27th to August 12th for the Olympic Games and from August 29th to September 9th for the Paralympics. It will represent a total of more than 600 events over 17 days for the Olympics.

205 nations, 12 venues and 4 lives sites in London and 60 000 people organising the event will be involved. 9 million of tickets have already been sold and a 4,7 billion TV global audience is expected…

However, the main question to answer during this conference was how can the Olympics have an effect on people in UK? On the city, on the business?

It turns out that it is not just about hosting one of the biggest events in the world but also about showing a business case: the world's eyes will be on London! Then, more than the sport, the Olympic Games cover many different aspects: media, organisational, touristic... 

People attending the event are in majority experts in their field or sport enthusiast, they don't really care about the destination … That's why it is important to promote London through the Olympics. Indeed, there is a need for extreme perfection in the organisation because of the phenomenal media coverage that will affect London as a destination even after the event. London Partners, the main organism in charge of the destination promotion, has to answer the following:  how to convince people to come back after the Olympics?

More than the touristic aspect, London needs to show itself as a global hub for the business of the event in proving that it can build up the buzz around the sports community. That is, by the way, one of the main objectives of London Partners because at the beginning, London is not particularly a sporting destination except maybe for cricket, rugby or football.

Finally, another important image that London wants to deal with through the Olympics is the ecological aspect. They want sustainability to be a big driver of the event and it is existent in the planning from the start. It implies the use of existent venues, the reuse of the new structures after the event and for everything else the construction of temporary structures. There are other projects of setting an open green space in the middle of the Olympic Park, like in Beijing. Also this area will be provided with a new pumping station and a new energy center.

As a conclusion, Barbara Jamison showed herself as very confident and positive towards the progress of the organization: “Everything will be built on time, the promotion of the venues is very good, London is ready for the Olympics”.

Caroline Flauss, Maÿliss Redou