The olympic host selection process

Sammanfattning: The members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who participate in the host election process for the Olympics come from around 77 countries. No other decision process has been found where the final decision is made in secret by so many nationalities. Because of the secrecy, it is not possible for the bidders to ascertain how the individual nationalities have previously evaluated different issues and, using this knowledge, to adapt the proposals to obtain the support of the majority of the voters. This means that its very complex picture of multicultural-influenced preferences must be recognized before it is possible to design a bid that will coincide with the preferences of the majority of the IOC members. This thesis will compile this information by examining the host selection process for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The study indicated that a majority of the IOC members considered the following seven bid offers to be determinants when positively differentiating a particular bid from the others, and providing the decision-maker with rational support for his/her bid choice: Olympic Village, Transportation, Sports/arenas, Finances, Telecommunications, Information Technology and Media Center. No bid messenger had any great impact on the majority of the IOC members in their bid choices. The thesis confirmed the common marketing statement: ‘The greater the consistency between the bidder's and the IOC members’ perceptions of the bid offers, the greater the chance the bid has of winning’.