KwaZulu-Natal Business 2016-17 edition

SPECIAL FEATURE
programme to achieve prosperity and equity.
• Bringing about faster economic growth, and
higher investment.
• Focusing on key capabilities of people and the
state.
Two of the measurements that will be used to
judge a successful games are tourist numbers and
new inward investment. Interestingly, on the website
of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, the
first item under 'Legacy' is 'International business
profile.' Glasgow set out to use the international
sporting event to 'showcase Scotland's good and
services and to build strong relationships with international
markets.' Like Scotland, Durban will be
looking to improve its 'reputation as an excellent
place to do business.'
Benefits
Writing for GlobalBrief.org, Sarah Juggins says it is
'nigh on impossible to quantify the impact of major
sporting events on a country's economy, and
the economic rationale is often questionable.' She
goes on, however, to give details of a very successful
project carried out by the city of Manchester, host
of the Games in 2002. The aim was that disadvantaged
communities would benefit from the hosting,
and they did, as 6 300 jobs were created; local construction
and tourism companies had big increases
in turnover; visitor numbers to the area grew by
300 000 annually in the years after the Games, and
these visitors spent about £18-million.
This is certainly the kind of broad base of new
opportunity which the South African bid team will
want to emulate. Juggins points to other successful
legacies in former host cities: thousands of metres of
fibre optic cable laid by Manchester; huge improvements
to Melbourne's sports facilities; Delhi's better
roads and airport, as well as its newly established
business hubs.
Tourism in South Africa was greatly boosted by
the 2010 Soccer World Cup. The BBC reported after
the Glasgow Games of 2014 that 690 000 people
travelled to the city and hotels had an occupancy
level of 95% for the duration of the Games. One
research team calculated the tourism impact at
£282-million.
Durban's bid team are hoping that visitor spend
(as it affects GDP) will amount to R6.1-billion when
the Games come to South Africa. An estimated extra
R20-billion would be delivered to the national
economic output, translating into an additional
R11-billion in GDP growth.
There will be 1 000 full-time staff and about
10 000 volunteers, all of whom would gain valuable
work experience and exposure. Reduced crime resulting
from heightened security during the Games
will have positive spin-offs for the local population
and help to improve the region's 'investability.'
One of the unique features of Durban's plan
is the concept of a 'Compact Games.' Durban is
already blessed with a sporting precinct on the
coastal plain between the sea and the Berea which
contains important sporting venues: Greyville
horse-racing track; Moses Mabhida Stadium; Sahara
Stadium Kingsmead (cricket); Royal Durban Golf
Club; Growthpoint Kings Park rugby stadium and
Durban Country Club. The Umgeni River marks the
northern edge of this sporting zone, and it is also
where the climax is reached of the famous FNB
Dusi Canoe Marathon.
The Durban Commonwealth Games will have
80% of its activities in a 2.5km radius and this will
help to position the former World Cup soccer stadium
venue, Moses Mabhida, as a mega multi-sport
events precinct and Durban as a highly desirable
venue for future global events.
Some sports must be offered at every Games
(the so-called 'core' sports), but hosts have a certain
amount of leeway to offer other sports. Rugby
Sevens is a 'core' sport and South Africa are often
in the medals in that discipline; hockey is too, but
Australia looms large in that sport, as they do in so
many others. Cricket has only been offered once
before, at the Kuala Lumpur Games in Malaysia
in 1998. That was the first time ever that South
Africa's cricketers got to wear gold medals – and the
team they beat in the final was Australia! Perhaps
the Durban committee can be persuaded to offer
cricket again.
51 KWAZULU-NATAL BUSINESS 2016/17