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Comment by LeoPanthera | Hacker News Reader

They've already banned foreign spectators, there will be no tourism boom.

In the next 10 years there will be, and 10 year time frames are short when it comes to LDP's planning. The tourism boom from 2014 to 2020 was an LDP plan. The Olympics were supposed to be just middle step in expanding that tourism. COVID is but a blip on the roadmap, hence all the subsidies meant to keep the hotels alive.

Don't get me wrong, my post isn't a love letter to the LDP. But you do need to keep the Japan context in mind: the LDP have been in power for over 60 years. The METI, who drive economic polocy, have been a continuous singular bureaucracy since before WW1. Setting long term development goals and continuing in those plans come hell or high water is the one thing Japan does really well. Just look at the Fuel Cell investments.

Umm maybe, but that's orthogonal to whether the Tokyo Olympic Games happen or not. Tourists would visit Japan for an actual Olympic games (if they could), but have you ever heard of anyone visiting a place because it hosted the Olympics in the past?

That is a Thing. The Olympics put Barcelona on the map for many Tourists. Although the Consensus seems to be, that it worked better in the past and best for formerly obscure cities not for a whole country.

It’s equally a thing that countries get zero long-term tourism boost because of the Olympics and end up with a huge economic hangover and giant venues that have no practical use.

Tokyo is already pretty well on the map.

Conversely, Nagano hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, but it really isn't.

Sapporo is somewhere between the two: pre-COVID, it was really taking off as arguably Asia's premier ski destination, but it's hard to credit the 1972 Winter Olympics almost 50 years ago for too much of this.

Montreal took a financial beating from the 1976 Summer Olympics.

Sarajevo took a military beating after its Olympic Winter Games.

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