A London Chamber of Commerce (LCCI) poll shows that 68 per cent of London businesses back London’s bid for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games and 47 per cent of the 357 respondents believe they would benefit in some way f London won the 2012 bid.
About 71 per cent of respondents considered Paris the most serious rival, and just 11 per cent thought Madrid and New York would be the most difficult to beat.
Almost half of the companies polled believed their business would benefit if London hosts the 2012 Games, but businesses around the proposed Olympic site in East London are opposing the bid because their companies would have to move or face additional costs.
Before London became a candidate city and no details of what a London Olympics would entail had been released, 81 per cent of the firms surveyed wanted the Games to come to London and 61 per cent believed their business would benefit from the Games.
A London 2012 official said, “it is hard to compare statistics from two years ago when London was not even a candidate city and had not formulated its plans, to now, because so much has changed and so much progress has been made”.
Dan Bridgett of the London Chamber of Commerce said, “the fact that almost 50 per cent of companies expect to benefit in some way from bringing the Games to the capital emphasizes the huge economic importance of the 2012 bid. Business people are now able to look at the concrete proposals on the table and see exactly how their company could take advantage of a successful London Olympics, a contrast with our survey from two years ago when nothing had been finalized.
“The potential benefits explain why such a high proportion of firms want London 2012 to win the nomination in spite of plenty of media coverage which has focussed on the downsides of hosting the Games and also puts into context speculation that London companies are less enthusiastic about their city’s bid than their counterparts in Paris and New York.
“Firms expect the Games to herald a significant tourist boost and also a profusion of Olympics-related contracts”.
