The Olympics: Does it actually help the economy of the host countries?

Pyeongchang, South Korea will host 2018 Winter Olympics

          
On July 7^th, South Korea won to host 2018 Winter Olympics. South Korea calculates to gain 27billion dollars by hosting the Olympics. Also, the potential economical benefit of the Olympics is estimated as twice as large as the benefit of the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup and 4 times lager than 1988 Seoul Olympics. As South Korea, a lot of countries try to host the Olympics to boost their economics. However, it is hard to say the Olympics always bring economical benefit to the host countries.

           

The benefits of hosting the Olympics are getting investments in infrastructures, foreign visitors, job creation, and economic growth in a short term. The hosting countries are required to build up or update stadiums, transportation, and accommodations, and these infrastructures encourage local business. Hosting the Olympics is a big project, therefore, host countries need to start preparing years before the Olympics takes place. During the preparation, more people can get job opportunities because making new stadiums and roads create jobs. During the Olympics, a lot of foreigners visit the host country and spend money at the local business. This helps both local business and national economic because the government can get benefits from tax.

                       

There are both positive side and negative side to host the Olympics. Barcelona, Spain succeeded about visitors and this city keeps the good number of foreign visitors. On the other hand, the benefit to Barcelona from hosting the Olympics was only 0.03% of increasing of the regional GDP. Therefore, it is difficult to develop the economic by hosting the Olympics, especially long terms growth. However, hosting the Olympics are beneficial for small countries and developing countries because these countries don’t have good infrastructure and they can get more revenue from investors and visitors.