Olympics Host Country

Introduction The Olympics is an international mega sporting event that is held alternately in summer and winter. Athletes whether professional or amateur all over the world compete with each other in this international sports arena. This event which is held every four years is participated in by more than 200 countries all over the world which compete in 400 various events and 33 different sports. The holding of Olympic Games date back in 8th century BC and is now a world tradition. It originated in Olympia, Greece and the present games are being governed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as ruled by the Olympic Charter.

The Olympic Games cater to ice and winter games for the winter Olympics, the Paralympic Games joined by persons

Different models were used to assess and evaluate the impact of hosting the Olympic Games on the economy of the host country. In the evaluation, three models were used. These include Input-Output such as the Computable General Equilibrium (CGE), the Regional Input Modelling System (RIMS) and the Error Correction Models (ECM). The use of the RIMS was criticized for being simple and had the tendency to double count revenues. Thus, the true values on the impact on the country’s economy were not properly determined. The evaluation also involved benchmarking on past data of past host countries. The Input-Output models also included direct and indirect costs in the computation. A multiplier per affected industry was also used in the computation of economic values. The effect of the multiplier inflated and exaggerated the results, thus, making estimates

However, post Olympics tourism activities might have been truthfully obtained based on reports on the host’s economy.

It is laudable that the researchers had delved in this study so that bidder countries would have a proper perspective on the impact of the event in their tourism industry and consider the best decision which is either to finance the event considering future benefits to be derived therefrom or also consider the financial costs of maintaining these new facilities which become a regular slice of their official budget.

In effect, tourism booms in the duration of the Olympics and the economy benefits from it. However, in the long run, the capital outlay on infrastructure and facilities may not have return on investment (ROI) and the depreciation expenses are being charged against assets which deteriorate and become unserviceable with the passage of time.

The researchers also did not include the cost of security risks in the computation of economic returns, hence affecting the test