1.An assessment of the economic impact of the 2012 Olympics on London Essay

1.An assessment of the economic impact of the 2012 Olympics on London - Essay Example As such, examining the economic benefits of the 2012 London Olympics would be critical. It has become critical for nations to evaluate the benefits of Olympic Games at the early bidding stages, referred to as economic impact assessment by Oxford Economics (2012). This enlightens the host city on the economic benefits resulting from hosting these games and subsequently promotes the local context of bringing significant gains to the local economy. Indeed, it would be appreciated that the Olympics 2012 greatly benefited London’s tourism, labour market and retail economy. To understand these economic benefits to London, it would be appropriate to consider the cost of hosting the Games. Every four years a city hosts the Olympics, massive sums of money would be spent on facilities, housing and maintenance and transport infrastructure. According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, DCMS (2012), the British government had set a budget of  £9.325 billion for hosting the 2012 Olympic Games. Of this,  £5.975 billion was to be sourced from the central government,  £2.175 billion from the national lottery,  £925 million from the Greater London Authority and  £250 million from the London Development Agency. This was much higher than the  £5.906 billion budget at the time of bidding. Core Olympic costs were to consume  £3.081 billion including transport infrastructure, venue, programme management and site security. The other amount was to be shared among tax costs, policing and wider security and contingency among others. Even so, as th e even neared, there were reports of the government running far beyond the budget, King (2012) estimating this at  £2 billion some fifty days to the event. Finally, the government spent between  £14 billion and  £20 billion (Greyser & Kogan 2013), security provisions having escalated the budget significantly. With such massive