Reece

Let’s look at the numbers. Several authoritative studies claim a boost between now and 2003 of around $7-8bn to the national economy, about half of which would be through additional tourism of which more than two thirds would be from overseas. This in effect makes the Games an export earner just as Qantas and to a lesser extent, Ansett nowadays are.

It is expected that around 160,000 new jobs will be created within the tourism sector alone due to the Olympic win. Indeed it is now estimated that Australia should comfortably exceed 10 million inbound visitors in 2000/01 as against the expected 3. 3m this year. That represents a lot of new jobs, both on the ground and in the air.

Qantas will for instance require a fleet of at least 100 widebodies by that time to cope with demand. It presently operates 52 widebodies in a total fleet of over 100 units. It is not overly optimistic to expect that it’s RPKs will have doubled a decade from now with much of the impetus for this increase coming directly from our Olympic win. This should also in the short term translate to a higher perceived valuation when Qantas goes to the market late next year.

Ansett is also a winner. The domestic has had a torrid four years beginning with the Pilot’s Dispute in 1989 then into the upheaval of deregulation and a recession that lingers seemingly without solution. Now having just ventured offshore for the first time and planning forays to Hong Kong and Osaka late next year, Ansett will be well situated to exploit the Games to the hilt as it domestically is by far the market leader. While Qantas will obviously boost capacity to cope with the armada of international travellers Ansett will also be able to feed its domestic network (which is totally deregulated, unlike the restrictions placed on capacity and frequency by international bilaterals) via a host of major foreign carriers with which it already enjoys far reaching commercial agreements.

The major traffic increase also just doesn’t occur during the period of the Games. In the two year period leading up to the actual events tens of thousands of representatives visit the host city in preparation for their team’s arrival. Almost all of these people travel business class and stay at the better hotels, use rental cars and taxis extensively and entertain and are entertained as routine.

Meanwhile, the image of Sydney, the most beautiful and desirable city to host an Olympics in several decades, is such that the ongoing international publicity generated by our new-found Olympic status will boost inbound tourism to the extent that we become the fastest growing tourism region in the world. Though at presstime nothing was certain, it was hoped that Badgerys Creek would be fast tracked to be at least capable of accepting widebody charters and heavy freighters by 2000. Though significantly improved, KSA will still effectively only ever be a two runway airport and will thus be considerably constrained through the period when the Games are in full hilt. It is not beyond the realms of credibility that perhaps Richmond, Williamtown and Canberra could offer some of their concrete to accepting charters as required, particularly as the latter two are nowadays an easy drive from Sydney.

Another interesting point is that whilst the world electronically and physically converges on Sydney at the time of the Games the major tourism boost is in the following year. Barcelona has enjoyed an unexpected tourism windfall since hosting the Games last year. Many people who saw the Games on TV, the exciting opening and closing ceremonies and the PR bits sprin kled through te telecasts extolling the delights of Spain, decided to actually visit once the Olympic fever had dissipated. Thus this year Spain, and Barcelona in particular have reaped the real dividend with some of the strongest inbound tourism growth in Europe at a time of widespread recession. In this context we are indeed fortunate to be celebrating our Centen- nial of federation in 2001, now planned to be a year of pageantry and special purpose to launch Australia into the 21st Century as a pivotal player in the very engine room of the new world order.

However, we are not the only winners. New Zealand, which for all intents and purposes will in air transport terms soon be just another region of Australia is set to cash in on our bid success. From Sydney, New Zealand is closer than is Ayers Rock, the Reef or Kakadu. Whilst no doubt many travellers will regard our two nations as one as ANZ will be able to exploit to the hilt its rapidly expanding Brisbane hub bringing Asian visitors directly into Australia then onto NZ before flying them home. We don’t know how close ANZ management got to seriously backing a rescue bid for Compass II earlier this year (for a pittance, about the cost of a single 737-300) but there must surely now be some personalities at head office who wish they hadn’t dismissed the opportunity so quickly. Compass’s only problem was a short term lack of capital. If ANZ had taken a strategic shareholding and increased it as the FIRB would have allowed, then later this decade it would have controlled Australia’s third domestic carrier at a time when we are to be the air transport envy of the world. Oh well! into Australia as our northern neighbours cash in on snaring the South East Asia will also benefit by increased tourism activity European visitors enroute for stopovers. Without being selfish, it is thus important that Australia gets as many visitors to home base via non stops or at worst one stop services from as many ports as possible.

If Qantas, for instance, is to perennially insist on feeding Australia from just three major long haul gateways (London, Frankfurt and LA) then it is going to miss out on a lot of traffic through the Asian carriers with their direct point to point routes throughout Europe and United and Northwest in the US. We made this point laboriously in our last two Recces though our Olympic win does bring it more than ever into context as the only way to go if Qantas is to not see more and more high yield traffic being forced to fly competing airlines through lack of point to point services.

The Olympic win is indeed the tonic that we all needed. As NSW Premier John Fahey aptly stated, “Staging the Olympics can be an economic gold medal for all of Australia”. So true, and so true also for aviation, from the small GA charter operator to the rapidly growing regional, to the many maintenance organisations to the training academies and finally the major airlines. Good one Oz!