The second lesson

By Suchada Tupchai

February 10 to 12 will see the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships 2006 take place. Organized locally by the Athletics Association of Thailand in conjunction with Pattaya City Council and with Thai athletes up against 45 other nations, it will be a major event to help kick off the 2006 season. And of course it is being held at the new Pattaya Indoor Sports Stadium.
Pattaya City Council gained considerable experience in the construction of the new stadium, which was completed in November – just in time. A lot of people were breathing heavily and breaking out into cold sweats to get the job completed. The stadium is a 480 million baht investment, but quite what that investment is going to bring to Pattaya is not entirely clear.
In fact, it doesn’t look all that exciting. The stadium so far in its brief existence has been unable to attract the number of visitors or attention it should have. Given its newness and its size, and what it should be able to do for Pattaya in terms of tourism, this is something of a surprise. Public relations efforts have not been enough to inform the public and tourists as to what is going on and the media coverage hasn’t attracted enough attention. Events have been held leaving anguished host organizations sadly disappointed at the lack of spectators who turned out to watch.
It appears that after the first lesson learned in constructing such an important venue, a second lesson now needs to be learned as to how to run it. The hosting of the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships should be a shining example in hosting sporting events to promote tourism, an important concept for Pattaya. Answers should be sought as should ways to attract more spectators, especially the young. If we are able to organize huge international sporting events but lack the expertise in publicizing them and generating the kind of spectator levels they deserve, then all the sporting fixtures that we do hold here will continue to seem like merely local events.