The economic impact of the 2008 beijing olympic games

Abstract

Sporting events like the Beijing Olympic Games have grown big, and have assumed increased importance on a global scale. The hosting of mega-events such as the Olympics comes with many challenges that have to be dealt with. For this reason, an understanding of the impact of the Olympic Games for the Chinese economy was important to the host community both before and after the Games. This study investigated the impact of the Beijing Olympic Games and set out to understand the problems and challenges in more detail, and to examine the implementation of the plans and the realisation of the anticipated benefits. Sporting events attracting large numbers of visitors to a host city are likely to have negative impacts like noise, heavy traffic and overcrowding, and a large number of visitors, results in excessive waste and energy use, compromises water quantity and quality, disturbs natural environments and processes, and disrupts local activities. A mixed method research design was used, involving a literature search to obtain secondary data, and then two phases of data collection: the interviewing of government officials responsible for the Olympic Games organisation, and a questionnaire-based survey. Despite limited data collection success during the first phase, a 54 per cent response rate to the survey was significant and was used to obviate the some of the limitations of the first phase. Consequent on the award of hosting rights in 2001 both government officials and the people of China were enthusiastic; the event was perceived to be positive socially and economically, and people looked forward to courteously meeting with and working with people from other countries. However, not all experiences were positive and some expected benefits were found to be over-estimated. This study found that the 2008 Beijing Olympics had significant impact on the Chinese economy and on other aspects of life in China. Four areas of impact (security threat, environmental pollution, social cultural, and economic) were established and used to develop hypotheses and variables that were tested for their significance. 17 of the 25 variables showed statistical significance while eight of them did not. On the basis of this, it was concluded that the Beijing Olympics had a generally significant positive impact on the Chinese economy, with few perceived security threats and no perceived environmental pollution problems.