For all the mighty symbolism, the torch can't shield Deighton from the sceptical audience gathered one evening in March to hear how they can profit from this summer's Olympics, The hall is filled with about 200 small-business owners, and a gloomy mood prevails as Britain struggles through its first double-dip recession since the 1970s.
One woman waves a London 2012 brochure and asks why it was printed in China when the games should be helping British businesses. "I'll look into it," Deighton promises. He gently reminds her that 95% of London 2012 contracts were awarded to British firms. Another man asks about a feared shortage of portable toilets in the Olympic Park.
Deighton politely reassures him that they've got that one covered. It's fitting that a former Goldman Sachs banker is running the business end of the Olympics - and getting dumped on by cantankerous Londoners.
In the Public Eye
Deighton, 56, says his 22-year career at Goldman didn't prepare him for being quizzed about such nitty-gritty details by a cynical British public. "When you're in investment banking, you're pretty much under everybody's radar all the time," he says.
Together with London 2012 committee chairman Sebastian Coe, the only man to have won 1,500-metre Olympic gold twice, Deighton is overseeing everything from transport to security while making sure he's got enough of those portable toilets. Surely his is one of the toughest jobs in the world right now?
"The best job in the world," Deighton says, smiling.
While the games will take place in an age of austerity, they won't be austere. In 2007, after underestimating the cost of cleaning up the site and constructing sports venues, the Blair government more than tripled the original spending plan, to 9.3 billion ($14.3 billion).
In addition, Deighton's LOCOG, has a separate 2.2-billion budget. For a country still reeling from the financial crisis, the money amounts to a backdoor Keynesian stimulus. Plus, Deighton says, the total outlay guarantees London a boost in tourism.
Dancing Nurses
Although the spending pales in comparison to the $67 billion China lavished on the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the government of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron is doing what it can to make Britain cool again.
The government even found an extra p41 million in public money to mount Olympic spectacles, including Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle's secrecy-shrouded opening ceremony, which somehow will merge Shakespeare's The Tempest, a play about a shipwreck, with dancing National Health Service nurses, singing schoolchildren and Paul McCartney.
Spending on security has risen to more than 1 billion as the government tries to guarantee a trouble-free Olympics.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com
London hotels persist with Olympian price hikes - Daily Telegraph
This week JacTravel, which provides wholesale accommodation for inbound tour operators, said its London bookings were down by 35 per cent during July and 30 per cent during August, compared with the same months last year. By contrast, it said that bookings for summer holidays to Barcelona and Berlin had grown by more than 100 per cent.
JacTravel found that some four-star London hotels were charging up to £415 per night for stays during the Games, nearly four times more than usual.
A second hotel booking website, Hotels.com, found that the average price for a room during the Olympics had fallen slightly by five per cent since March, to £202. However, this is still 93 per cent more expensive than the same period last year.
A spokesman for Hotels.com said that some cheaper rooms could still be found if travellers were willing to look to outlying districts.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
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