On August 14, 2008, a week after the Beijing Olympic Games began, its official website received a record high 183 million visits. This exceeds the volume of page views for all past official websites of both Summer and Winter Games
On August 8, the day of the Opening Ceremony, 24 million page views were noted
The number of hits increased rapidly after competitions began
Over 100 million hits were recorded on August 12 and close to 200 million hits on August 14
Visitors of Beijing 2008's website consisted of English-speaking guests exceeding the number of Chinese language netizens
Statistics show that the official website has developed into a special international Olympic website
The largest groups of visitors came from China, US, Australia, England, Canada, France, Republic of Korea, India, Germany and Japan
Page views from China and the US account for 29% and 23%

Beijing and Tourism

Tourism experts forecasted approximately 2m tourists would flock to Beijing in the two weeks of the Games
It was estimated that 500,000 of these two million visitors would be coming from overseas
However, during the Games itself these numbers did not materialize
For four-star hotels, only around 50% of the rooms were occupied
The rate for five-star hotels, was pegged at 70%
Ironically, the occupancy rate was down by almost 20% when compared to the rates during the same period in 2007
All 6.8 million tickets issued for the games were not sold out
One of the factors that Beijing was not a sell-out was economic - with the rising oil prices, inflation, the credit crunch and the mortgage crisis caused Americans to tighten their belts
Not a lot of foreign visitors were inclined to fly to Beijing to watch the Olympics
The same is true for the Chinese themselves - with inflation on the rise, many opted to stay at home and watch the Games from television instead of going to Beijing
The Chinese government tightened visa requirements and security measures as early as April 2008
China required foreign visitors to have proof of their accommodation and return ticket to be able to get a Chinese visa for the Olympics
This gave off the impression that China is not welcoming foreign visitors for the Games
This was reinforced by the fact that nearly 80% of the tickets to the Games were reserved for Chinese spectators.

Closing Beijing Games: Facts and Figures

Beijing is on track to become the most-watched Games in history:

More broadcast coverage to more people in more regions than ever
First Olympic Games in history to have global digital coverage
Record TV ratings in U.S. and China
Record traffic to Games-related web sites
More visitors to IOC’s site in first week than during entire 2004 Games
The site received over 5 million unique visitors so far (compared to 2.8 million