With the Games Over, Can Sochi Now Become a True Tourist Destination?

PHOTO: Once the Olympic Games began, we were able to focus on the beauty of Sochi. But did the negative momentum before the events began cancel out any potential post-Games tourism boost? (courtesy Splash News, splashnews.com)

As far as travel is concerned, the real Olympic gold is supposed to come to the host destination after the Games are concluded with the Return On Investment (ROI).

The recently concluded Sochi Olympics have been criticized roundly by the main stream media and by a virulent social media blitz that in the early going got more coverage than the Games themselves. Russia invested a record $51 billion (in comparison, Beijing spent $40 billion) to basically create Sochi's infrastructure almost from scratch. The ROI for Russia would come in a globally televised debut event for the progressive new post-Soviet Russia and a new global destination in Sochi that would add an important dimension to the country's tourism.

From the beginning these Games were portrayed in the media as Vladimir Putin's Olympics and Sochi was to be for him, what St. Petersburg was for Peter the Great, the model home of a new Russia under development. But that message was sabotaged before the train left the station with a steady drum beat of stories that made Russia sound very much like the old Russia.

It all began with the Russian Duma's attack on its LGBT community. Then came the terrorist attack in Volgograd. Then the stray dog controversy. Then the horsewhipping of Pussy Riot caught on video.

The surveillance cameras in the showers and the twin toilet stall meme followed. Finally after a week into the Games themselves the cameras turned their eyes (beautifully symbolized by Bob Costas' pink-eyes) to the athletes, who seemed to first get attention by complaining about the condition of the courses.

Before long the tragic events playing themselves out in Ukraine regained the world's attention.

Much like Chris Christie at a Super Bowl that was supposed to be a way station on the way to his presidency, things went terribly wrong for Putin.

Some of what went wrong came from a media that seemed to have its story written before it even got to Sochi, but most of what went wrong in the early going was a result of the old Olympic sport of shooting oneself in the foot, which the Russians did at a gold medal level.

The Sochi Olympics will be remembered by marketing professionals as the first Olympics where the reactions of visitors hit Twitter, YouTube and Facebook with a lightning speed and completely seized the narrative.

Within the first 10 days of the Games, there were more than 10 million mentions across social media, according to uberVU, a social media analyst. And as HipLogiq CEO Bernard Perrine saw it, "Twitter really brought attention to events in Sochi that normally wouldn't have gained attention through traditional news outlets."

HipLogiq, a social media marketing company, pointed out that before the games even began there was already a Twitter account @SochiProblems.

The account was immediately flooded with the images that went meme like the twin toilet stall and according to HipLogiq, @SochiProblems had 70,000 followers, more than the 2014 Winter Olympics official, verified Twitter account, @Sochi2014. Talk about controlling the message.

Destination Sochi: Can It Really Happen?

Olympic host cities have both benefited and busted from the experience.

Sydney's extra hotel capacity drove down rates.

In Athens, certain facilities have been described as ghost facilities, covered in graffiti and surrounded by chain link fences.

On the other hand, tourism to Barcelona was born with the Olympics and London seems to be poised for a decade's worth of benefits thanks to both a successful event and wise investment in facilities.

For Russia, a prosperous well-performing ski resort in Sochi would add a wonderful new dimension to a tourism that is locked into Moscow, St. Petersburg and Volga River cruising.

The $51 billion investment basically inserted a completely new infrastructure, but it wasn't delivered completely on time and that fueled snark-tsunami of a gleeful western media over unfinished rooms, the two toilet stall and the lack of towels. The media itself got caught by Jimmy Kimmel's video hoax of a wild wolf running through the dorms, a hoax that most of us were too willing to believe.

"It's hard to imagine a successful ROI on that kind of investment in Sochi," said USTOA President and CEO Terry Dale. "NBC tried to give it that Olympic glow, but everybody saw the shots of the tap water and the toilets. I'm not optimistic that Russia or Sochi will realize its ROI. I will say this. I watched the opening ceremony and it reminded me of all that Russia has contributed to the world: the great ballet, the music and the literature."

Russia's tourism challenges are bigger than Sochi.

"There is no point hosting a prestige event, at a cost of $50 billion, if the standard of hotels and ease of travel around the country isn't in step," said David Scowsill, the CEO and president of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). Scowsill cited hotels not "fully ready," steep hotel rates and problems with services such as Internet access.

"They need to get the product right, going forward," he said. He also called for Russia to make it as easy as possible for international visitors to come to the country for a short amount of time; "Russia has been making some strides at improving its visa processes recently. But its visa application processes can still be lengthy and burdensome; for example, group applications are not considered.

"To get to the Games, Russia's security agencies have issued special passports to all spectators to filter out potential terrorists. We hope that these policies have not put potential tourists off visiting Russia or restricted the number of spectators at the Games."

In fairness to Putin, the so-called Ring of Steel that the military put around Sochi may seem onerous now, but not as bad as a terrorist attack would have.

Sochi is located in the Krasnodar Kray region that runs along the Black Sea Coast at the foot of the western part of the Caucasus Mountain Range. The Black Sea Coast has long been popular with Russian travelers, but hasn't really attracted outsiders to its beaches.

PHOTO: Hotels like the Radisson in Sochi will now try to build the region into a tourism destination. (photo courtesy Carlson Rezidor Group)

The region now has 40,000 rooms to fill and about 210 miles of new road as well as dozens of sport facilities. It will enter coming winter seasons in competition for the European ski market with resorts like Innsbruck and St. Moritz, resorts with long traditions of service hospitality and marketing acumen.

In 2013, Sochi attracted about 3.8 million tourists and according to various reports, it will need to attract 5 million annually to keep all of its new hotels profitable. The new brands like Radisson, Park Inn, Golden Tulip, Pullman, Marriott, Swissotel and Capella will all put their incredible marketing muscle to what will be a formidable task.

There will be more events like the G8 Meeting in Sochi in June and the 2018 FIFA World Cup (soccer) to help, but the Russians are going to have to get more involved in tourism marketing, something they withdrew from years ago in the U.S.

As for Sochi, It would help if the situation in the Ukraine, which stole much of Sochi's media attention at the end of the Olympics, could resolve its issues.

Joint marketing with Ukraine and perhaps even Turkey could help position Sochi as an integral part of a wider region that would have no reliance on too distant destinations like Moscow and St. Petersburg to attract tourists.

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