ABSTRACT
As well as the likely impacts on the socio-cultural and environmental areas, host cities place great emphasis on the economic implications of the Olympics and the tourism development. These implications have received increasing attention over the past two decades, involving economic studies to provide a measure of the net gains that hosting the Games may provide. Although economic impact analyses prepared by or on behalf of Olympic advocates have demonstrated economic advantages from hosting the Games, potential host communities pose the question of whether, in fact, the economic benefits of the Olympics are pragmatic and, if they are, the extent to which such benefits offset the costs (Haxton, 1999).
