Benefits from exposure outweigh the cost of holding the International Olympic Committee meeting

If ever Copenhagen wanted to make the most of its publicity budget, hosting the International Olympic Committee meetings has been its golden opportunity, organisers say.

Some 5 million kroner are being spent by the City Council alone to re-route traffic, clean up the city and organise the two-week Copenhagen Olympic Festival on Town Hall Square. A portion of the money will also go to the overall 24 million kroner the National Olympic Committee is spending to host the event.

‘It’s all worth it,’ said Klaus Bondam, head of the city’s environmental and technical affairs department.

‘The costs need to be seen in light of the fact that a billion people will be watching on TV, as well as all the other ways Copenhagen will be marketed.’

For merchants, the presence of IOC delegates, press and candidate city representatives will generate 70 million kroner in extra revenue, according to tourism organisation Wonderful Copenhagen.

The price tag, according to Wonderful Copenhagen spokesperson Anéh Hadju, was a hefty one, but she pointed out that it was being shouldered by a lot of organisations.

‘We also have a lot of sponsors, so it’s nearly impossible to calculate how much this is going to wind up costing us,’ she said.

For Hadju and Wonderful Copenhagen, more important than the income generated by the congress, was the presence of over 1000 members of the press for nearly two weeks.

Wonderful Copenhagen’s Sport Event Denmark office estimates that the advertising value of news reports published during the congress and exposure to journalists adds up to hundreds of millions of kroner.

‘I expect Copenhagen to be mentioned more times during the IOC meeting than it will be during the UN climate summit in December,’ Sport Event Denmark’s Lars Lundov said.

One of the biggest costs of the event is the army of police officers and other security personnel assigned.

Citing security reasons, the police declined to release information about the budget or manpower, but when US President George W Bush visited Copenhagen in 2005, 1000 officers were on duty to provide security, and Police Union President Peter Ibsen said he expected ‘hundreds’ of extra officers from around the country to be called into service in the capital.

In addition to wear and tear on equipment and overtime pay for shifts up to 16 hours, Ibsen said police costs also included pay, food and lodging for plainclothes officers keeping an eye on the congress and its attendees.

However, like much of the cost associated with the congress, Ibsen said it was nearly impossible to calculate what security costs would amount to.
‘But the expenses are no doubt being written down someplace, and when all is said and done they’ll be able to add it up,’ he said.