PROBLEMS IN PERCEPTIONS

LESSONS from history are there to be learned. Amid the rumblings today over a potential shortfall in visitor numbers for the Commonwealth Games, we can look at the Sydney and Los Angeles experiences.

Perceptions of overcrowding in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics in 2000 resulted in tourists hanging back on bookings, leading to occupancies as low as 40 per cent just weeks before the Games began. Media reported at the time that two weeks before the opening ceremony, more people were leaving Sydney Airport than arriving. But all that turned around once the Olympics were underway, with occupancies rising to almost 100 per cent.

Warnings of road chaos in the lead-up to the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 had the opposite effect on that massive city’s freeways. University of Queensland transport expert Professor Neil Sipe recently told the Bulletin that LA drivers in fact enjoyed the easiest run they’d had in a decade.

Perhaps that has been the cunning motive behind a campaign waged by the State Government and event organisers in the lead-up to the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, urging spectators to stay off the M1, embrace public transport, walk or ride a bike, and for locals to take holidays. Maybe all this has been to ensure Gold Coasters will still be able to drive freely to work. Maybe.

Traffic will be heavy, but it now seems things will not be as dire as everyone has feared. As with Sydney, perceptions have proven to be a big factor two weeks out from the start of our Games, driven by those warnings of traffic congestion and the Government’s plan to use the hard shoulder of the M1 as a de facto dedicated lane to transport Games athletes and officials under police escort if gridlock occurs.

With accommodation, many have assumed – based on early predictions that the no-vacancy signs would be out – that few rooms are left. Not so.

Perceptions have also been driven by greedy elements within the accommodation sector who tried to gouge visitors. As a result, there is concern now about a bookings shortfall. Greed may have hurt the entire industry, with occupancy rates for the Games period sitting at 70.6 per cent.

The situation has not been helped by GOLDOC’s recent release of rooms back into the accommodation market. These were set aside to house media, officials and other members of the “Games family’’. GOLDOC says it returned the rooms before it was obliged to do so, but occupancy figures now raise the question of timing and whether hotels were given adequate notice that the rooms were no longer needed.

Village Roadshow theme parks and resorts executive general manager Bikash Randhawa did not hold back yesterday. His Sea World Resort is sitting pretty with an occupancy rate in the mid-80s for the Games, prompting Mr Randhawa to say accommodation houses that are struggling have only themselves to blame.

The lesson from Sydney is that it is not too late to turn things around.

But the Gold Coast has to be proactive and realistic. Pricing has to be sensible.

Businesses have to do the running with promotion to create demand, rather than sitting back and waiting for some government or Games agency to wave a wand.