Tourism businesses across Scotland are celebrating the prospect of a significant increase in revenue as a result of the country’s success in luring the 20th Commonwealth Games to Glasgow in 2014.
For eleven days in July and August 2014, Scotland’s biggest city will welcome tens of thousands of athletes, media and spectators from 71 countries.
A four per cent increase in visitors in the three years following the Games has also been forecast by the Scotland bid team, and some estimates on the overall impact run to hundreds of millions of pounds.
The announcement that Glasgow will be hosting the Games has been welcomed by national tourism agency VisitScotland, which is working with the tourism industry in Scotland to grow the value of tourism revenues by 50 per cent by 2015, the year after the Games will be held.
Aside from the Athletes Village, there will be significant capital investment in Glasgow’s tourism infrastructure in the years leading up to the Games. This includes construction of a state-of-the-art National Velodrome and a National Indoor Sports Arena, both in the city’s east end near the Village.
Meanwhile, a new Norman Foster-designed National Entertainments Arena is underway at the SECC complex. The 12,500 seat arena will be one of the largest indoor performance spaces in the UK.
Philip Riddle, chief executive of VisitScotland, said:
“Winning the 2014 Games is credit to a real team effort across the country, and an outstanding achievement on the part of a confident, forward-looking Scotland.
“The capital investment required to host the Games, the worldwide media coverage and the projected increase in tourism in the years following the Games makes this a milestone in our progress towards growing tourism revenues by 50% by 2015,” he said.
Photo (above right): Glasgow TIC on George Square put up a new window display as soon as the announcement was made on 9 November.
