Study Of The 2008 Olympics Sailing Regatta Impact On The Tourism In Qingdao

As the largest, oldest and most famous festival event all around the world, the Olympic Games has already reputed for its political, social, cultural and economic impacts, etc, far beyond the sports area. The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games has realized the century dream of Chinese people; while Qingdao, one of the partner cities and a young tourist destination, has hosted the 29th Olympics Sailing Regatta for the first time, facing new opportunities and challenges. This means the tourism industry in Qingdao is bound to have far-reaching effects due to the regatta. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to predict the tourism developing tendency in Qingdao, in order to better the tourism development with the analysis and the discussion of the 2008 "Sea Olympics" of direct and indirect, visible and invisible, short-term and long-term, positive and negative effects for tourism development in Qingdao.Based on the theory of event, festival and tourist destination, along with the documentation of Olympics Tourism research at home and abroad, the origin of the Olympics Sailing Regatta (OSR) and the OSR's effects on tourist destination, as well as the experience of the Olympic Games' impacts on tourism are discussed and elaborated in this paper by comparing and analyzing the data and documents. Survey and questionnaire are also used to gain first-hand information. Next it contains an overview of Qingdao's advantages of holding the 2008 OSR plus the Olympics Action Plan and the Olympics Special Plan for Tourism in Qingdao. With the chronological and spatial order and the qualitative & quantitative analysis method, the pre-OSR, mid-OSR and post-OSR impacts on tourism in Qingdao have been analyzed respectively. Besides, the application of gray prediction model forecasts the development trends of the tourism industry. Combined with the past experience, this paper proposes strategies and suggestions of the tourism industry development in Qingdao as a conclusion; and sums up the points which need further discussion and research as well.It assumes that the 2008 Olympics Sailing Regatta puts the tourism industry in Qingdao under the condition of unprecedented opportunities and challenges. The periods of pre-OSR, mid-OSR and post-OSR have significant impacts on inbound travel, domestic travel, tourist markets and tourism industry cluster respectively. The integrity of related tourist facilities after the OSR, the emergence of new tourist attractions, and the growth of investment projects in tourism will make the tourism get the best of other cities beyond comparison, boost the tourism industrialization updating, and to achieve further development of the tourism industry clusters in Qingdao. This paper is characterized by the choice of the partner city—Qingdao intead of Beijing to study and express the whole through details; and the geography-featured analysis of spatial and industial effects.