Here is something you likely aren't hearing on TV - the organizing committee is losing two billion dollars and counting so far because of low attendance figures.
I happen to know a few people organizing some of the events and these are certainly not the number of tourists that they were expecting.
You can see it during the opening ceremonies, at the male and female figure skating finals - the camera can't hide how many THOUSANDS of empty seats there really are.
Let me give you my impressions as a tourist last Wednesday to see the hockey game - the only event for most Canadians last Wednesday - the Canada versus Russia match up.
I drove up from Seattle and didn't wait in line AT ALL when I crossed the border. No cars. Nothing. The same thing occurred after the hockey game when I came back to the American border.
That has never happened as long as I have lived here.
When we were thinking of renting a hotel room before we left Wednesday morning I have to admit I was a little bit surprised to see that - even though the rooms were absolutely ridiculously expensive ($600 on average for a single bed starting price) ALMOST EVERY HOTEL HAD AVAILABILITY.
My aunt who owns a condo on Vancouver Island didn't get the kind of money she was expecting to rent it out.
In any event the bottom line is that even once we got through the border, I couldn't believe that I was able to drive THROUGH VANCOUVER without any traffic delays. I found public parking in heart of downtown within walking distance from the Olympic Flame.
The line up to get a clear photo of the Olympic rings and the Olympic torch was only twenty minutes when we were there. Yes, there were tourists downtown and the sites but they numbered in the hundreds at each site not the thousands.
The bottom line is that our cab driver was telling us that the city was very disappointed with the number of visitors. Nowhere near what they were expecting. I think there are two factors which came into play here:
1. The Severity of the World Economic Downturn - this is especially true in the United States where people from Washington, Oregon and California weren't even DRIVING UP given their relatively close proximity.
2. The fact that Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest Has No Real Population to Draw Tourists from - I looked on Wikipedia and there are only ten million people in the whole area here. Compare that with Torino which had hundreds of millions of people who could drive or take the train to see the games.
3. While Vancouver Island is Scenic the City Itself is Kind of Dull - I was born in Canada and I think a lot of things about Canada which make it a more rational place to live. But Vancouver is sort of boring (at least for a Torontonian). Toronto is like New York compared to Vancouver.
The bottom line is that I think that there were a number of factors which came into making this a financial disaster for Vancouver, the province of British Columbia and the government of Canada.
Think of what I am writing about the next time you see empty seats at an Olympic event ...
