London 2012 blog

Amid the new brand launch and before the IOC's visit to London I attended the IOC OGKM (Olympic Games Knowledge Management) 'Arrivals and Departures' workshop in Beijing.

The IOC invited LOCOG and VANOC (Vancouver 2010 Organising Committee) to join some 50 BOCOG staff at the workshop.

A&D will be particularly challenging for our Games because we designated five official “ports of arrival” (a very technical term in IOC speak) in our bid – Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and City Airports, together with Eurostar. Beijing, Vancouver, Turin and Athens will be or were predominantly single airport Games. I came away feeling better equipped to help plan our way through our more complex proposals.

What was clear from the seminar is how closely several departments have to work together to make A&D a success.

Key departments are Protocol, International Relations, Venues, Accommodation, Accreditation, Venue Operations and Transport.

In fact we were encouraged to think of A&D as a process, not a function. I felt rather smug at this point because that is exactly how we in London 2012 have approached it!

My most memorable quote from the workshop was by the IOC Consultant Daniela de Rosa (ex Turin Games) who said “the airport is a hole, not a room”.

This was her very Italian way of saying that the process should be designed to whisk the clients through the airports as fast as possible because after a long and probably tense journey, most people want to get to their accommodation as fast as possible!

This was my third visit to Beijing. Believe it or not, my first visit to Beijing was in 1973 (yes, I am a bit older than I look!) when very few people were allowed in and hardly anyone was allowed out!

I was there as part of a table-tennis team playing at the 2nd Afro-Asian Latin America Friendship Invitational Tournament. I have a photo of the delegations and the Chinese dignitaries at the time (including Zhou En Lai and Deng Xiao Ping) who are still revered by the Chinese today.

My reflexes have slowed a great deal but I am happy to give anyone a game!