Reseachers call on businesses to reveal true impacts of Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in survey

Researchers who successfully predicted a downturn in the Gold Coast economy during the Commonwealth Games are hoping governments and event organisers take their latest project more seriously. Here’s how you can help.

Borobi, alone, at Surfers Paradise for a school holiday period the sday before the Commonwealth Games started last April. Pic: Lyndon Mechielsen

RESEARCHERS who successfully predicted a downturn in the Gold Coast economy during the Commonwealth Games are hoping governments and event organisers take their latest project more seriously.

A year on from GC2018, Griffith Business School researchers Dr Joan Carlini and Professor Andrew O’Neil have launched an ambitious survey of business along the Coast to understand the good, bad or indifferent experiences of the event.

The pair’s last report, Gold Coast Business and the Commonwealth Games: Impact, Legacy and Opportunity, predicted a 40 per cent reduction in demand for non-tourism businesses during the Games and highlighted a risk the event would “fail to generate additional employment or income benefits” in the short to medium term, and that it would also deter locals from spending.

The research was largely ignored by the council and State Government’s Get Set for the Games initiative, whose unattributed customer projections and traffic disruptions proved largely overstated, leaving many businesses out of pocket after stocking up on staff and supplies for customers who failed to materialise.

The pair is now seeking businesses from all sectors, sizes, ages and locations for a post-Games study, which it hopes will inform planning for future major events.

Dr Carlini said the survey would probe where businesses received their pre-Games information, what types of business decisions they made in the lead-up to the event and whether their plans changed midway through the Games.

“We will also ask whether they had a change in customer numbers, if that was very negative, very positive or there was no change,” she said.

“We’ll ask about changes in sales volume, vehicle access, supply chain interruptions and changes in discretionary spending.”

.Owner of The Salt Mill Johnny Gillett was told 500,000 people would come to the Coast for the Games. Picture Glenn Hampson

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As well as asking about businesses directly, the researchers will ask business owners about the impact of the Games on the city overall, in terms of image, branding and quality of life and whether any negative impacts were outweighed by the positive.

“A year on it’s not raw emotion anymore — it’s more objective and reflective,” Dr Carlini said.

“We really want a representative sample because we’re looking at the entire Gold Coast.

“We’re hoping to get about 800 people to respond.

“We don’t have an agenda, we want to hear good and bad stories and even from people who didn’t have any impact.”

Then owner of Zippy's Cafe John Georgiou at Southport was upset trade had been non existent during the Commonwealth Games. Photo by Richard Gosling

Dr Carlini said she wished she had better promoted the pair’s last research so businesses could have been more prepared.

She’s still not sure how the projections were not given more prominence when Games organisers were briefing businesses about how to prepare for the event.

“I supplied (Get Set for The Games) with hundreds of copies, and they came to all our presentations,” Dr Carlini said.

“I don’t really know where they got their information and how they made their predictions.

“The view is that (organisers’ predictions) have actually been highly inaccurate.

“In this study, we don’t want people and the government saying “that was just the whingers (who reported negatively on the Games)”.

“We actually want a really broad spectrum of people on the Gold Coast to say `this is what happened to me’.”

The survey is available here until April 1.