Olympics is a Great Business Learning Opportunity

The Olympics is not just about sports. It is also about doing business, business networking and for the younger generation, it is even a great chance to learn about business. I saw this interesting article from the George Washington University Hatchet this morning I thought I share (Click here for full article).

As part of a three-credit course called Behind the Scenes at the 2010 Winter Olympics Games, 28 graduate students are in Vancouver from Feb. 12 to 23, studying sport and event management firsthand.

"It's reinforcing things that they learned in the classroom. Here, it's a living laboratory. So they're hearing from the best of the best in terms of marketing and event management," professor and organizer of the course Lisa Delpy Neirotti said.

How much do Olympians Make?

An Olympian not only can get paid in gold, he or she can also expect a lot of green. According to Forbes.com, the top earning Olympics are (for video click here):

Number 5: Apolo anton Ohno - Speed Skating earn 1.5 million last year. Doing Dancing with the Stars might have helped him!
Number 4: Ted Ligety - Alphine Skiing earn 2 million last year.
Number 3: Lindsey Vonn - Alphine Skiing earn 3 million last year.

The number 1 spot is a tie between Kim Yu-Na (ice skating) from Korea and Shaun White (Snowboarding) from the US.

(photo courtesy of MSN.com)

They both earn 8 million last year. They are heavily sponsored by mega brands such as Hyundai Motors, Proctor & Gamble, Samsung, Nike, Universal Music, Burton, Target, Red Bull, Oakley, Ubisoft and AT&T.

Interesting note, 4 out of the top 5 are from the US! And pro athletes like NHL hockey players are not included in this list.

Millionaire Olympics are very few and far in between. There are still so many Olympic hopefuls are struggling and need our support! Keep their dreams alive!

A Very Gay Friendly Olympics

(photo courtesy of wikipedia.com)

While more than a third of the world is still hostile to gays and lesbians (shame!), west coast Canada is very gay-friendly. It is one of world's top gay wedding destination. When Olympics is going to be hosted here, it is no surprise that BC is going to show the world that we are very proud and want to celebrate of this fun loving culture.

Here are related events that are happening around Olympics period:

• Whistler Pride House's cocktail lounge: located at the Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre Hotel and features TV monitors to watch events, plush leather couches for relaxing and socializing and art installations.
• The 2010 Whistler Gay Ski Week will be held March 1 to 8, between the Olympic Winter Games and the Paralympic Winter Games.
• Vancouver Pride House, located at the Qmunity centre, 1170 Bute St., will also host events until March 21 and is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• For more information go to: www.pridehouse.ca

Happy Chinese New Year of the Tiger! 新年快乐!

Happy Chinese New Year or Spring Festival! This year is the year of the tiger. This is the most important holiday to all who are ethnically Chinese.

CNY is based on the lunar calendar and the first day always falls on a different date. The best part for me growing up was CNY is actually 14 days long! Yes, you read it right, CNY is two weeks long! Needless to say, it is my favourite part of the year.

The Legend:

Long time ago, there was a beast named "Nian" (Nian 年 means year in Chinese). He terrorised the village every year on the first day. The villagers would leave out food offering for Nian, so he would not eat the livestock, crop and small children. This went on for years and years, the villager grew more scared, but angrier too. Finally, they decided to fight back. They made firecrackers that made really loud noises to scare Nian off. When Nian came to the village, everyone was still very scared. But one brave little boy who wore a red jacket stepped forward and threw the first firecracker at Nian. It worked! Nian ran off with his tail tucked behind his back. Therefore, the villagers every year celebrated the win over the beast with red decorations and firecrackers to keep Nian aka evil spirits away.

The Customs:

• To prepare for CNY, each family would clean the house thoroughly, get a new hair cut and even try to get rid of all debts (that includes library books on loan) to ensure a clean start for the new year.
  
• CNY is a family holiday much like Christmas. It is all about eating a large family feast on NY eve.
  
• In northern China, it is customary to make dumplings (饺子) with vegetable and pork fillings. People also like to tuck a coin in one of the dumplings. Whoever is lucky enough to bit into the coin dumpling, it is said he or she is going to have a good year.
• In southern China, people likes to make a sweeter treat called new year rice cake (年糕).
• Children often receive red envelops containing cash from their older and married relatives such as parents, grandparents and etc.
• Chinese people considers themselves a year older on the first day of CNY, not on their actual birthday. Therefore, the Chinese population technically only has one birth date.

Year of the Tiger:

Chinese Zodiac is a series of 12 animals that represents every year. 2010 is the year of the Tiger. For people who was born as a tiger (1914, 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998), it is said :

Tiger people are sensitive, given to deep thinking, capable of great sympathy. They can be extremely short-tempered, however. Other people have great respect for them, but sometimes tiger people come into conflict with older people or those in authority. sometimes Tiger people cannot make up their minds, which can result in a poor, hasty decision or a sound decision arrived at too late. They are suspicious of others, but they are courageous and powerful. Tigers are most compatible with Horses, Dragons, and Dogs

My family and I will be celebrating in Vancouver amongst all the Olympics madness. I will be helping mom make won tons (since we are southerners) and other very yummy goodies. But no more red envelops for the very grown up me :(.

Olympics = $$$$$$ for the host city?

Other than Vancouver, many events are also held outside of the city. Many of the snow related sports are in Whistler. Recently, Whistler has made the news, not good news unfortunately. Whistler Ski Resort is owned by Intrawest who just ran into financial trouble aka missed a major debt payment. After the news broke, there was an air of panic whoever takes over Whistler was going to interfere with the Olympics only weeks away. Drama!

Before this, the construction of the Olympics village went way over budget by more than $100-million and has had to have its financing taken over by the city.

Is this type of controversy that sparks the debate whether the Olympics was a good idea in the first place? It is like a huge jigsaw puzzles with many uncertainties that has to come together and not to mention, it takes up massive amounts of resources. The cost almost always exceeds revenue.

I believe in Olympics is a good idea and a good financial idea. The key is not to expect the Olympics itself bring Vancouver any significant financial gain. The cost of the Olympics should be view as a marketing expense, a 580 million dollar expense. With revenue, the actual expense will not be as scary which we should be happy about.

As a host city of such massive international gathering, Vancouver is betting on the future. Let's use the Olympics in China as an example who viewed their Olympics as a coming out party for the county. It paid off almost right away. China was about to successfully negotiate with the World Trade Organization two months after it won the right to the 2008 Olympics in July 2001. The Olympics ultimately showed the world China's capabilities, infrastructure and resources which boosted trading and investment confidence the world has for her. During this economy recession, China was the first to bounce back while the rest world is still waiting.

I believe the 2010 Winter Olympics will do the same for Vancouver. More trading opportunities and more investment money will come as the world spot light shines on us for the next two weeks.

2010 Olympics! 2010 Olympics! 2010 Olympics!

Today is officially one week to 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver! For the next three weeks, I will mostly be doing blogs on my personal experience with the Olympics and Vancouver. Here it is a prelude.

Vancouver is one of my favourite cities in the world. Here is an amazing time laspe video of Vancouver created by David and Dan Newcomb featuring music by Linda Ganzini.




Many have described Vancouver as a big metropolitan with a small town feel due to its lack of highways and a forest of very tall buildings. Located in the most western province in Canada, Vancouver is the third largest city Canada behind Toronto and Montreal. Here are some quick facts:

Population: 2.6 million
Language: mostly English
Currency: Canadian Dollar (CAD)
Best time to travel: all year around depending on what you want to do
Weather:

• Nov to Feb – high of 8C (46F) to low of 0C (32F)
• Mar to May – high of 16C (61F) to low of 3C (37F)
• Jun to Oct – high of 22C (71F) to low of 10C (50F)

Most famous for:

• Majestic natural beauty. It is surrounded by water (Pacific Ocean) and mountains
• You can ski in the mountains, windsurf in the ocean and play a round of golf all in the same day
• Consistently voted one of the most liveable cities in the world
• Strong Asian presence and influence. Hence, some of the best Asian restaurants outside of Asia are here. Sushi is as fresh as it gets. Click here to follow my Vancouver restaurant reviews on Yelp.com.
  
• Rain, a lot of rain from November through March. But when the sun comes out, the city just shines.
• Host of Expo 86 and 2010 Winter Olympics
• One of the gateways to Asia Pacific. Shanghai is 9 hours away.

Surrounding Destinations:

• Whistler (2hr drive) - one of best snow resort towns in the world
• Victoria (2hr drive + ferry) – the capital of British Columbia province
• Tofino (2hr drive + ferry) – surfer paradise and rain forest
• Seattle, USA (3.5 hr drive)

I live in the heart of Vancouver and the Olympics, literally 10 feet away from BC Place which is where the opening ceremony is going to be held on February 12th at 6PM. Here are a few pictures of the area I overlook. It use to be an parking lot. Now it is tent city! The area is also heavily blocked off and surveillanced with CCTVs and a lot of police patrol. Now I only have one way in and out of my street. It is a bit, actually a lot of pain in my rear. But the Olympics hype is totally overriding that feeling.

To my back, is the Olympic Village. It is a beautiful area by Falls Creek and Science World (the big lit sphere). It is a fantastic area to go for a run. The athletics have already hung their country's flag proudly on the balconies. Very cool site!