Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics: Excellent Games and Economic Effects

12.00am, 25th February 2022

Robin Zhu, Senior Correspondent, USA

A worker sets up an installation featuring Bing Dwen Dwen, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Mascot and Shuey Rhon Rhon, the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympic Games Mascot, in Beijing, China January 11, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang Read Less

Although the 2022 Winter Olympics has been ended for a few days, it left unforgettable memories to many people who either attended the games or watched the show that took place in Beijing, China. Usually, cities that held Olympic Games have an enormous spending on the Olympics’ infrastructure, including the stadiums, residential areas, and communications, etc.; also, part of the budget goes to the operation and maintenance, especially the wages for employees. In light of the large startup cost of running the Games, many cities may not be willing to take the opportunity, or “risk”, to hold the Olympics. However, Olympics can be a great stimulator for the local economy, and Beijing’s success sets an example for many other cities.

Prior to the 2022 Winter Olympics, Tokyo held the 2020 Summer Olympics, which was delayed to 2021 due to the pandemic. COVID-19 has added many instabilities to the economics worldwide, and it undoubtedly affected the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics much, as industries associated with tourism, hospitality, and entertainment suffered greatly from the pandemic, and the Tokyo Olympics received nearly no revenue from ticket sales since nobody showed up to watch the matches in the stadiums. As a result, Tokyo Olympics covered the most losses among all Olympics Games in history. This puts a shadow over the Winter Olympics coming afterwards in Beijing, and numerous people worried that it will experience the same failure as Tokyo did.

To everyone’s surprise, Beijing Olympics was successfully held, which largely relied on the harsh restrictions on infection prevention of the pandemic to ensure global athletes could compete in a fair and safe environment, excluding as many COVID-19 risks as possible. According to the released financial reports, the total cost of the Winter Olympics was very large, reaching to over 30 billion US dollars. The data of total investments includes operational expenses of 1.56 billion USD, stadium construction fees of 1.51 billion USD, and a majority cost from infrastructure over 30 billion USD.

Corresponding to the large cost of Beijing Olympics, it also earns many revenues and makes a lot of economic impacts, no matter short-term or long-term, tangible or intangible. First of all, as a developing country, China is lack of developed professional stadiums, but the Beijing Olympics helped accelerate the pace of development, especially for the winter sports. Secondly, although the pandemic still affected the revenues from ticket selling significantly, it increased people’s demand for online medias and e-commerce. As people watched the matches and bought related products or souvenirs of Olympics, like the extraordinarily popular mascot Bing Dwen Dwen, business opportunities for online sales are created and encouraged. Even after the pandemic, such progress made in e-commerce will continue to facilitate its development. Last but not least, the Winter Olympics not only communicates the world with Chinese brands and corporations through sponsorship, but also popularizes many snow and ice sports in China, allowing more people from the developing countries to have access to winter sports. This will improve people’s health conditions in general, and stimulate consumption and investment in related fields as well.