Empty Seats at China's Sellout Olympics

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Tickets Are Fine, But What About Visas?

Then there's the lion's share of the tickets that have been given to athletes and to corporate sponsors instead of being sold to the public. One of the perks companies such as Coca-Cola (KO), McDonald's (MCD), or Visa (V) get in exchange for spending tens of millions of dollars to sponsor the Olympics (BusinessWeek.com,7/31/08) is free tickets for their clients. Getting people to fill those seats can be tough. "I just spoke to a couple of the sponsors and other companies, and they said they've had some problems with the RSVPs," says Li Li Leung, managing director of Helios Partners China, an Atlanta sports marketing firm that counts Lenovo, BHP Billiton, and Mars as clients.

Another explanation is problems getting visas. In the months leading up to the Olympics, China tightened its visa policies for "security considerations" (BusinessWeek.com, 8/4/08). Foreigners wanting to come to China for business or to attend the Olympics were required to get an invitation letter from someone in China. "Some visitors who had planned to come, in the end, decided not to come due to the difficulties in obtaining travel documents," adds Li. And many of those who were successful have been forced to stay in hotels that are charging abnormally high room rates during the Olympics.

The tighter visa policy also forced some foreigners living and working in China to leave the country, even if they had Olympic tickets. When Mathilde Deffieux was working in China earlier this year, she bought tickets to the boxing event. But she was forced to leave China by July 28 and return home to France when her visa was extended for one month, instead of the normal three months. "I was really disappointed," says Deffieux, 26, who ended up giving away her tickets to friends. "My friends, they're all working. I don't know if they really have time to go."

Bussing Them In

Of course, there is one silver lining. The empty seats have created opportunities for those of us in Beijing to attend Olympic events. On Aug 9, I was invited by Coca-Cola, one of a dozen Olympic Partner Program sponsors, to watch the U.S.A. vs. Japan women's indoor volleyball match. Coke had 15 seats at the game but only used five (me and another journalist, Coca-Cola's public relations executive, and two interns). There had been apparently more Coca-Cola employees at the first game, China vs. Venezuela, but they left after China won.

And when all else fails, the ruling Communist Party can mobilize students and volunteers to fill empty seats, as they have done so far for soccer, volleyball, and boxing. Sun Hao, a 17-year-old student at Haidian Foreign Languages Experimental School, and his classmates were bussed into the Worker's Gymnasium to fill the stands for the boxing matches on Aug. 11. "Because we are not 18 yet, we cannot be Olympic volunteers. We are using this way to support the Olympics," he says.

Tschang is a correspondent in BusinessWeek's Beijing bureau.