Vancouver and London? Yes. Beijing? Not so much.
Harris Interactive released the results of a study they’ve conducted that finds the majority of Americans and nearly half of Canadians are not interested in attending the Olympics in China. Online surveys conducted in the US and Canada show that 57% of Americans wouldn’t want to attend the Games in Beijing and 48% of Canadians would take a pass. (Harris Interactive conducted online surveys of 2,454 Americans and 1,009 Canadian adults between June 9 and 16.)
However, if price isn’t an issue, 59% of Americans and 68% of Canadians would attend the 2012 Summer Games in London and the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. Harris Interactive posits that respondents could have a higher comfort level with Canada and the UK as travel destinations and concerns about recent turmoil related to the Olympic torch run. However, they might be paying short shrift to the “if the price isn’t an issue” argument they bring up in the release. Price is definitely an issue for Americans these days, and news stories keep popping up about how difficult air travel is going to be in the coming months. Travel to the Olympics, which will begin in about six weeks, surely seems out of the question to many at this point.
Nevertheless, the Olympics are destined to be huge, even if only by TV and online coverage standards. Check out PRWeek’s coverage of the Olympics here.
