What will happen to Sydney after the Olympics? Will it continue to boom?
Knight: For us the benchmark is Barcelona. Barcelona’s best year for tourism was not 1992, the year of the Games, or 1993, the year after the Games. It was last year. In every year since the Games the number of overnight hotel bed stays in Barcelona has increased. And that’s because the world was introduced to Barcelona and saw Barcelona in a very positive light. We want to do the same with tourism in Australia, and do it more broadly in a business sense. We want the world to become more aware of Australia’s capacity to do things, to build things, to run things, and to show that Australia and Sydney are not simply “flavor of the month.” TIME: How do you think Sydneysiders will cope with the massive influx of tourists during the Games? Knight: Sydneysiders, like all Australians, are sports crazy. We are a tiny nation in terms of numbers–there are only 19 million of us–but Australian teams and Australian individuals are world champions in a whole range of sports. Australia finished 5th
