Ask Skift: What Impact Do the Olympics Have on Tourism?

Skift Take

Attending the Olympics is a bucket list item for many sports fans, but does the worldwide focus on host cities contribute to a long-term increase in visitor numbers?

Rashaad Jorden

The Olympic Games cast an enormous spotlight on host cities, but that attention doesn’t always result in large numbers of overseas visitors.

Corinne Menegaux, director general of Paris je t’aime, the city’s tourism board, said this year’s Olympics won’t be a major draw for non-French sports fans. Air France has backed away from expecting a bump form the Games, as has Accor.

Skift recently reported that less than 15% of the fans expected to come to Paris for this year’s Olympics are foreign.

So do the Olympics have a long-term impact on tourism?

We put the question to Ask Skift, our artificial intelligence chatbot. Ask Skift used information that appeared in our past news coverage, and we did additional reporting on the subject.

What Ask Skift Said:

The impact of the Olympics on tourism is complex and varies by location and timing. Here are some key insights based on past events:

Short-Term Displacement: Hosting the Olympics can create a “ghost town” effect in central areas, as seen in London during the 2012 Olympics. Many regular tourists avoid the city due to fears of disruption, expense, and overcrowding. This phenomenon is known as “displacement.”

Visitor Numbers vs. Spending: While the number of visitors might decrease, those who do attend, often Olympic ticket holders, tend to spend more. For example, during the London 2012 Olympics, the UK saw a 5% decrease in visitor numbers but a 9% increase in overseas visitor spending.

Long-Term Economic Impact: The long-term economic boost from hosting the Olympics is often elusive. Despite the initial influx of visitors and spending, the anticipated long-term benefits, such as increased tourism and trade, do not always materialize. For example, Japan hoped to leverage the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to boost its tourism, but the actual long-term benefits remain uncertain.

Localized Benefits: Smaller boroughs or less central areas may benefit more from the influx of international tourists. In London, areas like East London saw potential benefits from increased investments and international arrivals during the 2012 Olympics.

Marketing and Promotion: Countries often use the Olympics as a marketing tool to showcase their attractions and encourage future tourism. For instance, Japan aimed to use the Tokyo 2020 Games to promote itself once travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic were lifted.

In summary, while the Olympics can bring short-term financial gains and increased visibility, the long-term benefits for tourism are less certain and can vary significantly depending on various factors including location, existing infrastructure, and global conditions at the time of the event.

What Else You Need to Know:

Ivan Savin, associate professor at the ESCP Business School, noted in an article he co-wrote in the Journal of Sports Economics that four out of the five Summer Olympics held between 2000 and 2016 had a negative impact on tourism in the short- and medium-term, with the 2008 Beijing Olympics being the only exception.

“Our results indicate that it is easier to get a net increase in tourist inflows in countries that are less frequent destinations for tourists — for example, those in Asia or Africa,” Savin said. “By contrast, the United States and Europe, both of which are traditionally popular with tourists, have no single case of a net positive effect.”

Brazil: However, Brazilian authorities believe the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics helped boost visitor numbers to Brazil. Close to 6.6 million international travelers visited Brazil in 2016 — which was a record number and a 4.8% jump from the previous year, according to the country’s tourism ministry. Brazilian officials said their forecast of half a million Olympic visitors was met and possibly surpassed.

Brazil then broke the record it set in 2016 the following year although it’s uncertain how much the Rio Olympics played a role in the country’s 2017 visitor numbers. The Ministry of Tourism reported that São Paulo was actually the Brazilian city most visited by international tourists in 2017.

Barcelona: Barcelona is believed to have gotten a significant long-term tourism boost from hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics. The city had roughly 1.7 million overnight visitors in 1990, a figure that grew to more than 8 million by 2016.

Salt Lake City: Victor Matheson, a professor of economics at the College of the Holy Cross who has studied the economic impact of major sporting events, believes the 2012 Games hosted by Salt Lake City helped increase ski tourism to Utah.

“The cities that can benefit from a big event like the Olympics are cities that have a lot to offer, but aren’t otherwise well known,” said Matheson, noting that Utah ski resorts such as Snowboard and Park City are comparable to those in neighboring Colorado.

“Utah was not as well-known nationally or internationally as a ski destination. Therefore, the Olympics created great advertising for a great product.”

Ski resorts in Utah experienced a 20.4% increase in skier visits between 2000-01 and 2014-15, surpassing Colorado’s growth over the same period by roughly 12 percentage points. And ski tourism to Utah has continued to boom. The state saw 6.7 million ski visits during the 2023-24 season compared to 3.9 million during the 2014-15 season, according to Ski Utah.

Tokyo: Japan has seen a major visitor boom since it hosted the Games, though they were delayed to the summer of 2021 due to the pandemic. Japan welcomed 2.73 million visitors in December 2023, the country’s most-ever for any December.

It is projected to welcome 35 million foreign visitors this year, a figure that would surpass its pre-Covid high of 31.88 million visitors in 2019.

But despite an enormous investment in travel infrastructure to prepare for the Olympics — including reconfiguring Tokyo’s train stations to be more accessible for people with disabilities — it’s unlikely the event contributed significantly to Japan’s tourism surge. In addition to barring overseas fans from attending the Tokyo Olympics, Japan didn’t reopen to visa-free independent travelers until 2022.

Travel executives have attributed Japan’s growing popularity with international travelers in large part to the weak yen.