The Australian Expansion Part-2: The Effect of the Sydney Olympics on Tourism

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In the last discussion it was discussed how Australia is still very consistent in regards to its tourism industry. It was mentioned that tourism is a big part in the 69% of Australia’s GDP. We can attribute the good tourism industry of the country to its rich and diverse culture, beauty, and industrialized first world facilities, but we have to consider a big building block that has set Australia in the global spotlight.

The big building block and the global spotlight mentioned above is of course the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics. Did you know that 5.5 million people bought tickets to this event alone? That is how grand the scale of the Sydney Summer Olympics in 2000.

Australia won the bid to host the Olympics on 1993 and since then construction to make the best sporting facilities was started until the starting ceremony. Not only were sporting facilities improved, the Australian government also streamlined every facility and convenience near and around the Olympics area to help tourists on their way to the games.

These streamlined infrastructure and improved transportation helped make and improve Australia well beyond the 2000 Summer Olympics. Just imagine that $1 billion was spent to make the changes and improvements, hence the government was aiming for the long tail and not just for 2000. The benefits of the improvements to Sydney was a rail link between the airport and the city, expanded ferry network, as well as expanded facilities at the airport.

Because of this sudden boom in tourism during the Olympics, Australia needed 5600 rooms to house the major influx of tourists. 5600 rooms is almost 10 hotels, so major hotel projects had been made for major cities and places like Darling Harbour, Wooiloomooloo Finger Wharf, Sydney Casino, and a lot more.

The improvements and the hotel projects in Australia are really long term goals that will propel the country as one of the major destinations in the world. With all the facilities and hotels, it was projected that Australia will have an increase from 6.3 million to 7.6 million visitors by 2003, and indeed it happened more or less and it is still improving up to this day.

At present, Australia is still pushing for aggressive tourism campaign, as mentioned earlier with the Hollywood movie and the global advertisements. It was also mentioned before that the only problem Australia is facing is the shortage in rooms. With room shortages, it is expected that the rooms will cost more. Still, if Australia can pull off improvements from 1993 to 2000, they can pull off something to address this shortage problem.

Please Note: This is the “Part 6” in a series of articles focusing on the “Expansion of the Hospitality Industry”. Over the weeks that follow you can expect to find further parts published in relation to the expansion.

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