Winter Olympics Off To A Slow Start

The winter Olympics in Truing begin in less than 150 days. However, less than half of the tickets to this event have been sold.

Out of 460,000 tickets sold, only 100,000 have gone directly to the public. The rest have been sold/given to sponsors, corporations, sports federations, broadcasters, national Olympic committees and ticketing agencies.

Giorgio Lauretta, head of ticketing, said:

"I would have liked to have sold more, but our advertising so far has been quite weak".

Beijing To Cost Less Than Athens

The Beijing 2008 Olympics will cost less than the 2004 Athens Games, it is even expect to make a small profit.

That is at least the view of Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice-president of the Beijing Organising Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG), who said:

"Beijing will adhere to the principle of 'frugal Olympics' in organising the 2008 Games. We use the paper two-sided now."

Not surprisingly these games have been dubbed the "frugal Olympics".

Jiang said that the Games are expected to a profit of about $16M.