Originally Posted by Souvy (Post 8311777)

A valid point. On my first trip to Indonesia, in the early 1990s, it was "Visit Indonesia" year. A big push on encouraging inward tourism. The streets of Jakarta were smothered with banners exhorting people to visit Indonesia.

I'm already here, numbnuts!

Originally Posted by canadian_critic (Post 8310475)

I tell you if I was in charge of the city that guy would be wearing concrete boots and keeping the local fish population satisfied by now.

Originally Posted by CaptainHook (Post 8311741)

Why would Vancouver need to advertise the Olympics in their own city? It'd be a waste of advertising. You advertise where your target audience is. The same applies for London. They don't need to advertise on the Tube, do they?

Originally Posted by Kiwilass (Post 8311774)

BTW, some flailing Olympic volunteer whacked me in the face yesterday. Is this what they mean by "olympic spirit"???

Originally Posted by The Aviator (Post 8312150)

I guess this is good enough reason for you not to be in charge of the city. I'd love to hear your election campaign though!

Why would a city advertise itself to people who are already here? We know about the Olympics, I for one am really ticked off with it, be glad when it's over, will be keeping well out of the way. Unfortunatley we'll be paying for it for years to come, while we are experienceing cuts in education, healthcare and govt. services.

Originally Posted by canadian_critic (Post 8312496)

I was only making the point that other countries are doing what Vancouver should be doing and using the hype of the Olympics to promote themselves.

Originally Posted by canadian_critic (Post 8312496)

I was only making the point that other countries are doing what Vancouver should be doing and using the hype of the Olympics to promote themselves. I never said anything about promoting the Olympics in the Olympic city but they could be promoting Vancouver as a place to set up an office, or a place to come on holiday, or a place to do business with, per my original comment.

The Olympics will draw millions of people and attract much press interest. Vancouver could be doing so much more to set itself on the map by promoting its qualities. To me not doing so is an utter waste of an opportunity and I'd fire the asses of those involved. But other places like Britain have spotted the opportunity and will no doubt be benefitting from the audience here. Good that Brits have their head screwed on right at least!

Originally Posted by Lord Vader (Post 8312525)

What they need is a great busienss person to take advantage of the situation. I never heard of Vancouver (sp) until a couple of weeks ago.

Originally Posted by canadian_critic (Post 8312503)

Well no but that's not because of the Olympics so much as some dim-wit that they accidentally hired albeit as a volunteer. Sorry to hear this though, and hope you're ok

Originally Posted by Novocastrian (Post 8310255)

<and if Souv thinks this is payback for pointing fingers at that 50000 post thread when I "organized" the last meet, he might have a point>.

Originally Posted by iaink (Post 8312660)

Surely you mean when you schlepped it on to me to do!

Originally Posted by el_richo (Post 8312519)

But they are. Have you not seen the promotions outside of Canada?

Originally Posted by canadian_critic (Post 8310475)

Well it hardly comes down to one person, but I would like to see a ton of stuff promoting Vancouver as a place to come on holiday, set up a satellite office in, invest in etc. I'd like to see examples of native heritage all around, examples of artwork, native people, local talent, reps from successful businesses. Something to create a bit of buzz rather than a short fzzzz and a small stream of smoke.

The seabus terminal, for example, has great promotions for tourism right now. The only problem is that it's for tourism in London, England. I don't know whether I should be feeling ashamed of Vancouver for selling out or just proud that once again Brits are leveraging opportunities to draw more tourists to our fascinating country.

I think there's more ceremony around a general election here than I've seen evidence of any kind of celebration for the olympics. There seems to be plenty of anti-olympic sentiments here, which, by the way, are very negative. My original remark about the lack of such festivities was out of despair rather than inciting negative feeling. If you're lucky enough to live in a place hosting such a vital global event, then whether you like it or not you should support it as best you can.

The problem in Vancouver is that it's allowed itself to be flooded by millions of homeless people from all over the country suddenly. Some do-gooder is giving away high visibility tents so that when the world looks on Vancouver, it's making a bloody massive statement about how many homeless people there are here. I heard that other provinces fund their tramps / homeless to piss off to Vancouver. And dumb-ass Vancouver not only does nothing about it, but allows this do-gooder business owner who's making millions out of these silly tents, to bring disrepute on the city. I tell you if I was in charge of the city that guy would be wearing concrete boots and keeping the local fish population satisfied by now.