The Big Show is over folks and what a spectacle it was. Rarely has any event so forcefully captured the imagination of the whole nation.
Locally everything went pretty smoothly, notwithstanding a few transportation and parking snafus here and there. In terms of the bottom line, there were some winners and losers.
For the most part, downtown businesses did not see the kind of sales increases they anticipated. That includes some of the major fast food outlets, as well as family-owned eateries, whose earnings stagnated.
Don Shergill, the proprietor of the Essence of India restaurant, said he saw his February sales tank compared to last year's numbers. He attributes the slump to a dramatic decline in personal vehicular traffic from the Lower Mainland and the fact that many of his regular customers fled town, or were in some way engaged with the Games.
And he notes that out-of-town Olympic volunteers failed to take up the slack because they worked irregular and long hours.
Some establishments prospered, especially if they were slinging suds and providing big screen TV entertainment.
As we bathe in the afterglow of the Games themselves, the big challenge will be to leverage the thousands of visitors and the untold numbers of viewers who got daily doses of the Sea to Sky Corridor via the electronic and print media.
On the heels of our successful Olympic volunteer host program, and Ma毛lle Ricker's gold medal exploits, many visitors connected with this community and raved about the place.
One of our biggest priorities should be to bring this group and their friends back. For the past two weeks our guests were busy with their Olympic duties; next time we will have their undivided attention.
We also need to stay in touch with coaches, athletes and the national sports organizations who called 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 home during the Games, or passed through the corridor.
Silver Star resort, near Vernon, became the training centre for various European Nordic ski teams prior to their Olympic events in the Callaghan valley.
Collectively these teams hauled in over 50 medals during the Games. According to the Silver Star website one athlete from the Czech Republic said he will talk to his coaches about returning for a pre-season training camp as early as next November.
Apparently the Norwegian, Finnish Russian, Japanese, and Swiss teams all feel the same way about the amenities at the resort.
We can offer similar packages to some or all of these teams, given our close proximity to the facilities where the actual Olympic events were held.
With the success of the Games, a "Heart of 2010" post-Olympic marketing strategy is a priority. Now is the time for the 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 Chamber of Commerce, the 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 Sustainability Corporation, Inside Edge, and any other organization intent on boosting the local tourist trade, to step up to the plate.
