Olympic Preparedness – China Feels Ready

Confidence among Chinese citizens that China will run a successful Olympic Games is running high at 99.4%
Planned participation levels are very strong with over 54.9% of those surveyed claiming to participate actively in the games
Participation in sport is positively correlated to Olympic awareness which is a good sign for sport in China for years to come.

CSM Media Research in coordination with the China University of Communications continues to delver deeply into the Olympic Movement and its effects on people all across China. Starting from March 2008 and continuing through to the Beijing 2008 Games themselves numerous research projects, (qualitative and quantitative, face to face, telephone and internet surveys) are in progress to clearly demonstrate the effects and opportunities the Olympics bring to China.

A large project recently completed in this joint effort drives insight into the frame of mind gripping the nation as the Olympics rapidly approach. After talking to over 1000 respondents over the telephone some very important findings are available regarding Olympic confidence. The survey ran from the middle of March to the end of March well before the Olympic Torch returned to China. The respondents were sampled from 10 cities spread across China from the north to the south from the east to west.

Those approached in each city covered by the survey overwhelmingly stated their confidence that China would run a successful Olympics. There is running high at 99.4% of interviewee claimed they were confident that China would hold a successful Games. This survey covered with 5 cities who had Olympic competition venues and 5 other cities, and the results shows that among citizens throughout those 10 cities all have every confidence in China would hold a successful Games。

Looking more deeply into how the Beijing Olympics are actually affecting change in the lives of people around the county we focused on a question which asked people is they were planning on participating in the Olympic Games. We were also able to identify how they planned to participate. Firstly we found that 54.9% of the people talked plan to participate in the Olympics Games in some form in no prompted.. People are planning to participate through environmental protection activities, volunteering time to distribute promotional materials about the Olympics, rededicate themselves to their work to help play their part in a successful Olympics, and so on. We can find that people focus on volunteer work, improving the overall civic behavior of the population at large.

Lastly, results have shown us that people who participate in sports, that is people who are actually active in sport activities have a higher awareness of different Olympic related events. They know the correct starting date of the Games. They know these are the 29th Olympic Games etc. This correlation indicates that as the Olympics drives further participation in sports by people around the country this entire event has the opportunity to service as a catalyst for further participation in sport. This in turn may help to drive the domestic sport industry forward after the games have come and gone. Our post Olympic surveys will help us to monitor if this is the case and not and we look forward to reporting on this at the end of the year.

Our continued work in this field will not stop here. We will be following Olympic Media selections by people around the country to identify and explain changes in behavior that are related to the Olympics. In particular we will examine the area of New Media in detail and what development support the games will bring.

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