Grand Olympics, tremendous preparations

2007-09-27 13:47:55 [ Big Normal Small ]    　Comment

The organizers of the Beijing Olympics have envisioned every aspect of the preparatory work and are making every effort to fulfill their task for 2007, according to Shao Shiwei, vice-director of the Media and Communications Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).

Competition venues to be available in 2007

Except for the National Stadium, which is to be completed in March 2008, all other venues will be inaugurated by the end of 2007, Shao recently told the press in Shenyang, a co-host city.

Competition schedule finalized

The competition schedule for the 28 sports and 302 events has been settled already. The detailed daily schedule will be made final three months before the Olympics, due to the arrangements to be made for TV broadcasters.

As far as security matters and emergency measures are concerned, all schemes will be put into practice this year.

1,000 cultural events expected

Beijing is expected to hold as many as 1,000 Olympics-related cultural activities, including high-level exhibitions and art performances, presentations of foreign art troops, community cultural squares, and promotions by sponsors and co-host cities.

30,000 journalists to cover the Olympics

More than 30,000 journalists are expected to come to Beijing during the Games. They pose a great challenge to the organizers in terms of how to meet their specific news coverage demands. "An all-around training drive is certainly needed to pass the experience to cater for the media, whether they are accredited or not," Shao said.

Two million visitors to test Beijing's services

At least two million Chinese and half a million foreign tourists are expected to visit Beijing during the Olympics. Taking into account another 50,000 athletes and media, accommodation is a big challenge, too. BOCOG signed a total of 122 Beijing-based star-class hotels for the purpose in 2006. But how can they make some 10,000 rooms available for domestic visitors and 160,000-180,000 rooms for overseas visitors? The organizers are trying to find solutions to the problem in 2007, Shao said.

Hot tickets, low prices

In previous Olympics, one-third of the tickets was hot, another one third was break-even and the remaining one third was reluctantly received. In contrast, most of the Beijing Olympic tickets have been hot, according to the ticketing program so far. The low-price ticketing policy is attributable for the situation, when the most expensive ticket for the opening ceremony stands only at 5,000 yuan -- the lowest prices seen in recent editions of the Olympics, said Shao.

(Source:Chinadaily.com.cn)

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