Credit Card spending in Vancouver gets big boost from Olympics
The 2010 winter Olympics has brought Vancouver a 46% boost over credit card sales from the same time last year. Visitors to Vancouver spent $5.2 million on Visa credit cards on the opening day of the Olympic games.
Hosting the Olympic games comes with few guarantees of financial returns. Past host city Montreal lost an estimated $1 billion but Los Angeles made a surplus of $352 million. The boost to Vancouver is expected to give the local economy a boost although its hard to estimate if the effects will be seen over the long term.
The biggest spenders are from the United States, followed by China, the U.K, South Korea, Australia and Hong Kong. Visitors from those countries accounted for more than 70% of the $5.2 million spent on Visa cards on opening day.
