ACE - Association for Conferences and Events

Olympic Torch Relay Route

On 7 November the towns, villages and communities along the route of the Olympic Torch Relay were announced by London 2012 – dates that will bring the Games to many of Britain’s iconic attractions and surrounding tourism businesses. In fact, over 95% of the population will be within just 10 miles of the Olympic Flame.
The 70-day relay, presented by Coca-Cola, Lloyds TSB and Samsung, will start at Land’s End on the morning of 19 May 2012. On leaving Land’s End, the Olympic Flame will travel an estimated 8,000 miles before arriving at the Olympic Stadium for the Opening Ceremony.

As with the Games themselves, the arrival of the Olympic Flame can be considered on two levels - business it will attract on the day and perhaps more significantly the promotional value which pays dividends in the weeks, months and years ahead.

What is so exciting about this route of the Torch isn’t just the places it will visit but also the eye catching forms of transport that it will use including horseback, bicycle, tram and steam-train. No doubt these will live long in the memory of the global audience, just as many of us are still drawn towards the Great Barrier Reef after the Flame went sub aqua en route to Sydney 2000 (incidentally congratulations to Queensland’s Gold Coast for winning the bid to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games earlier this month)

Last week during World Travel Market, Tourism2012Games.org spoke with the Canadian Tourism Commission, tourist board of the host country for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games. They couldn’t emphasise enough how important the Torch Relay was to showcasing the tourism offer to a global audience and they encouraged both the tourist boards and businesses to seize the moment

If you haven’t checked out your vicinity to the route yet, log on to the interactive map  and start planning how you can celebrate its arrival in your community. Tourism businesses are encouraged to read bespoke guidelines to referring to the Games published by London 2012, including a section on referring to the Torch Relay on page 10.