Question for UTers: Should Toronto bid for the 2024 Olympics?

[Tuscani01]

I don't imagine the city can host both - especially with only a gap of one year in between. If they are going to go for the Expo I sure hope they go for themes that are a little more substantial - the ones they came up with for 2015 were rather anemic.

AoD

Never say never. Paris is also considering going for both.

 

[animatronic]

Aside from the fact that those that support Olympics don't suggest that increased tourism is the only benefit, you are still not answering my question on the tourism aspect....why is Barcelona a success (on that front) by 3.8 million increase in visitors but Toronto's measure of success has to be 13.7 million?

The Barcelona conversation started upthread as an example of post-Olympics legacy. I say that's meaningless because there is no way the Barcelona experience could be replicated here:

• Some people say that you can't make a blanket statement that the Olympics are a waste, citing Barcelona's civic revitalization
• The 1992 Olympics helped Barcelona grow from an artificially depressed regional centre to a mature, globally-significant tier-2 city
• They succeeded in large part because of an organic increase in trade shows and because their waterfront revitalization turned them into a 52 week-long European Spring Break, both of which benefited from the Olympics
• Barcelona's experience is irrelevant to Toronto because their post-Olympics boom could not be repeated here
• Toronto in 2015 is already a mature, globally-significant tier-2 city, with a travel & tourism sector that's 5x the size of pre-Olympics Barcelona
• We are probably going to grow our overnights by close to Barcelona's 3.8 million purely on organic growth - after all that's only a 20% increase over today's numbers
• For the Olympics to have a positive impact, it would need to ignite a huge growth in tourism that is well beyond our current level - hence the comparative doubling target
• We do have room to grow our conference/trade show business, and add some festivals here or there, but it's dreaming to think that an Olympian combination of infrastructure investment and global marketing is going to cause a sustained step change increase in our tourism sector
• The much more relevant example is Sydney - another mature, globally-significant tier 2 city - who saw a 0% post-Olympics increase in international visitors

 

[TOareaFan]

^I am going to leave this discussion because we will never get anywhere simply because I can't get my head around putting the word "only" before 20%

 

[animatronic]

^I am going to leave this discussion because we will never get anywhere simply because I can't get my head around putting the word "only" before 20%

20% total growth over a decade is only 1.8% growth per year. That's close to what we are doing now. Not sure why that's hard to understand.

 

[animatronic]

If you haven't voted, this is a little reminder that the poll closes at 1:00pm Wednesday.

 

[animatronic]

Final results:

Yes: 51%
No: 42%
Undecided: 7%
t=81

That's about 10 points less than the general public and surprisingly evenly divided.