So, for those of you living under a rock (hey, housing is expensive these days), the Olympics in Beijing started today/yesterday/tomorrow (depending on what side of the international date line you’re on).
That’s all well and good, but the real fun for us here in the NW is the upcoming 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics The big question on everyone’s mind is “what is that going to mean for us here in the Puget Sound, and what should we be doing to maximize the positive impact?”
Most folks I talk to think that there isn’t much we can “do” to get people to come here on their way to or from the Olympics. The kind of mass marketing effort it would take for even an incremental uptick would be massive. However, there are definitely going to be people who do come here before, during or after, and so the consensus is that we need to be thinking less about how we get more people to want to come and more about how we accommodate those people who are going to come. If we think we’re bad at accommodating international visitors now, imagine when people from 150 different countries are up the road and wanting to 1) find a place in Seattle to exchange their Djiboutian francs, 2) get a hotel room and 3) find transportation to and from tourist attractions (not to mention communicating with attractions staff once they get there).
The plus side is, if we’re able to use the Olympics as a catalyst to invest in that international friendliness, it can stay in place for business travelers and tourists well afterwards.
The Prosperity Blog 
This is a good point, Eric. How do we accommodate them is more doable- and probably more fruitful long-term – than thinking about how to get a bigger slice of the Van 2010 pie. We can do some things that would make us generally more attractive to intnl tourists…like figure out how to maximize rail between the two regions (prob not doable at this late date), or help international visitors get around our region (probably is doable), etc.
I just went with family to Whistler (well we never made it due to the rock slide–the sea-to-sky highway is another topic entirely) but the crossing time to go from CA to US was incredibly long (90 mins) this after taking the truck route crossing because it was “faster” according to readerboard on Hwy 99A. This effectively doubled our travel time…a disincentive for sure.
I don’t know what’s more strange about that picture: the fact that “Quatchi” appears to have a tattoo of himself on his right bicep, or the fact that this tattoo appears to be on top of his fur.
You definitely should chat with people who tried to attract tourists here during the EXPO in Vancouver about 20 years ago or so. Although much has changed, many things remain the same (the border, I-5, ambivalence about attracting people) and the lessons learned might be of use.
Are you connected to the region’s business and convention bureaus on this? They were making an effort during EXPO and may have insights.
When I visited Whistler in November of 2006, they were busy working on widening the narrow roads up to whistler. I also heard that they were working on getting a train all the way up to whistler from Vancouver according to some of folks in Whistler. This would mean that people could take the train from Whistler and into Seattle without changing trains. Now, I don’t know if any of that became reality or if it was just wishful thinking.
I took the train from Edmonds to Vancouver and then had to take a bus, (not so comfortable), but doable in just three-four hours or so one way. So visitors could “take a break” from the games and come into Seattle for dinner and a night of rest. Perhaps advertising lower hotel rates might entice some to make the trip, and maybe even stay a while.