The European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) has released a report claiming that Countries that host the Olympic Games suffer a drop in tourism growth in the years surrounding the event, known as the ‘Olympic effect’.

The report was published on 6 July, a year to the day that London won its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games.

Tom Jenkins, executive director at ETOA, said: “These findings may seem surprising because during the Games the city’s hotels are full. But this situation is short lived. The presence of the Olympics deters regular tourists. They perceive that the city will be full, disrupted, congested and over-priced.”

In the five years before the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Australia and New Zealand were both experiencing a 10 per cent growth in tourism. However, in the two years prior to the Games, and for more than two years afterwards, Australia’s tourism stagnated while New Zealand’s continued to improve.

Even Barcelona, which was hailed a tourism success, has been overtaken by Dublin and Prague as leading European destinations.

However, Ken Kelling, communications director at VisitLondon, said the claims are misleading.

“The report is full of muddled thinking and selective statistics,” he said. “Ask anyone involved in the Sydney or Barcelona Games about tourism and they will tell you that it propelled their image as a destination in a way that no form of marketing promotion could ever do.”

A spokesperson for the British Hospitality Association (BHA) also disputed the report. The ETOA however is demanding a co-ordinated, government-backed strategy to combat the “potentially damaging” Olympic effect, which is an opinion backed by the Tourism Alliance, the independent lobbying group. Details: www.etoa.org