Destinations known | What Qatar really wants from the football World Cup is to become a gleaming tourist magnet, and it just took a big step towards that goal
- This month, Qatar Tourism and Trip.com Group signed a memorandum of understanding to promote the country as a family-friendly destination
- The one-year agreement will see Qatar promoted in China through Ctrip.com, in India through MakeMyTrip.com, and globally through Trip.com and Skyscanner.com
In the run-up to the 2012 Olympic Games, in London, the BBC aired Twenty Twelve, a television mockumentary series based on the trials and tribulations of the tournament’s hapless deliverance commission.
Headed by Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville; Downton Abbey, the Paddington movies), the team includes Kay Hope, head of sustainability, who is forever insisting that sustainability and legacy are very different concepts, despite never quite being able to explain how one differs from the other.
“Sustainability is about using the Games as a catalyst for change; it’s about improving the quality of life in the east end of London and encouraging new ways of life across the UK that take into account our debt, not just to the past, but also to the future,” Hope tells a perplexed interviewer. “Whereas legacy is totally different,” she snaps.
The storyline plays with that age-old question: what is the benefit to a host city or country of holding a major sporting event such as the Olympics?
Hosts certainly don’t do it for the money. It’s estimated that the Olympics cost London US$18 billion and generated US$5.2 billion in revenue, not all of which the city could keep, because the International Olympic Committee takes more than half of all television revenue.
Beijing spent an estimated US$40 billion on its Games, in 2008, to earn US$3.6 billion.