Press conference: Olympic Family gathers in Beijing

Related story: Top-notch services for Olympic Family members in Beijing

Date/Time: 11:00 a.m., Monday, August 4

Venue: Main Press Center (MPC)

Sun Weide

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to our press conference. Our topic for today is gathering the Olympic Family to Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. We invited Mr. Wang Shilin, vice director of BOCOG International Relations Department. He will brief us on the services provided by the BOCOG International Relations Department.

Wang Shilin gives the speech.

Wang Shilin

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, I'm very pleased to see you all present here. This press conference today is a joyous gathering of the Olympic Family in Beijing. This is a goal that we have been pursuing at the International Relations Department. That is to make sure that the Olympic Family members will enjoy their stay in Beijing. Let me brief you on the services provided for the IOC members. First of all, we offer services for the IOC members, president and secretary general of the IFs, president and secretary general of the NOC residing in the Olympic Family Hotels. The Olympic Family service team has already started the services. They've already offered high quality accommodating services which include finalizing the daily agenda, providing needed information, arranging the transport and language support. Information desks have been set up at the 5 Olympic hotels such as competition results and schedules, as well as other information as needed. A co-host city information desk has been set up in Beijing Hotel to help with the co-host cites' visit. Family members can enjoy one stop services here, covering information, support, reservation of air tickets, accommodation booking as well as arrival and departure arrangements.

A dedicated protocol team will be designated for IOC President Rogge. Following the previous Games practice, guest programs have been drawn up for IOC members as well as their spouses and companying guests. From August 1 to 7, tour on tourist attraction sites and tour on cultural scenes will be organized everyday so as to enable the guests to get to know Beijing better and to showcase 'People's Olympics'.

According to needs of the IOC, service teams are assisting the IOC Executive Board meeting and the 120th meeting, with the design and the decorations. We will provide logistic and technological support to ensure the success of the meetings. The team coordinated IOC members and organizations of the 120th meeting. The team as a bridge between IOC and BOCOG, provides and facilitates the communication and daily coordination.

Secondly, we provide services for the officials and athletes of NOCs staying in the Olympic Village. Beijing Olympic Games will receive 205 NOCs with 16,000 athletes and team officials, which is the highest number of the participating of NOCs ever for all Games. Up until August 3, 177 delegations have completed the delegation registration meetings and 158 delegations have checked in the Olympic Village. In addition, among 63 delegations competing in the Beijing Olympic Sailing events, 56 of them have already checked in Qingdao Olympic Village. 43 delegations will compete in equestrian event with 33 already checked in Hong Kong Olympic Village. Each delegation will have liaison officer and NOC assistant. They will communicate policies on the Beijing Olympics to all the delegations and we will report the NOC's feedback as well as questions back to BOCOG. In keeping with the international practice, we hold regular meetings. On July 23 and 25, two meetings were held. As from 27th, the opening of the Village, the meeting has been held everyday to address issues, and accommodate the needs of the delegations.

Thirdly, we offer services to the dignitaries. During the Beijing Games, the international dignitary team will provide every sport services related to watching ceremonies and competitions as well as arranging their competitions. Moreover, cars and liaison offices will also be made available.

Fourthly, we facilitate family members' entry to Chinese mainland. In line with the international practice, the policy is very clear. It is only with the IOC card, passport and other require documents that the Olympic Family members can have multiple accesses to Chinese mainland from July 8 to September 23. In such case, a visa is not needed. To help accredited persons who failed to reserved the IOC card in time or unable to apply for a visa to short notice, a 24-hour hotline has been in service. The number is 86 10 66699778. Help desks have also been set up at Terminal 2 and 3 of the Beijing Capital International Airport.

These accredited persons can get the entry confirmation form for Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games. This form, together with the valid passport and necessary documents, can allow the foreigners direct entry and for them to proceed with immigration formalities. Up till August 3, the visa hotline and help desk assisted 580 such persons with the immigration services.

Fifthly, we provide high quality language services. We can guarantee that all liaison officers and personnel are well equipped with foreign language communication skills. In addition, a multi language service center where 44 languages are available was established.

The multi-lingual switch board service center can be reached up to 3-language services managers of different venues. There is also an emergency team set up to provide supplementary interpretation support for press conferences and some dignitaries to ensure smooth communication.

The Olympic Family members will gathered together to celebrate in Beijing on August 8, 2008. We are giving our best to provide exceptional and considerate services. I hope the Chinese people and culture will keep the Olympic Family members enjoying their stay here.

Sun Weide

Thank you for your briefing. Question now. Introduce your agency while raising the question.

AP

A number of National Olympic Committees have expressed concern that citizens in their country have brought tickets from a website called Beijingticket2008.com and those tickets have not appeared. It looks like a fraud has been perpetrated and that is the allegation. Is BOCOG aware of this? If so, is BOCOG doing anything for this and what is BOCOG doing to prevent ticket fraud?

Wang Shilin

With respect to this situation, I am afraid I am not fully aware of this. As far as I know, for the accredited personnel of the Olympic Family members, BOCOG has done a lot of arrangements. In the headquarters and in our service teams, we have already furnished efforts on the advice of them on the tickets. I'm afraid I'm not very aware of this situation. I can go back and find out the ticketing website. However I can't answer you for the time being.

Channel 7, Australia

On the same subject, many Australian victims have lost thousand of dollars for buying tickets in this website. Even though you are not aware of the situation, what is your reaction to this fraud?

Sun Weide

Actually, there are 2 ways to get the Olympic tickets. One is the domestic stage which we have completed after 4 stages. Second is the international, tickets will be sold through the NOC through various media designated by NOC. The fraudulence of tickets is something we try to draw attention to the public about the sales and the lawful transfer of the sales through lawful channels to avoid fraudulence. As far as the domestic tickets are concerned, the scalping of tickets is prohibited by the national laws and BOCOG is very supportive of investigating into the fraudulence cases of the ticket sales and other related activities related to the sales of the tickets. For the victims, they have to take care of its own consequences if they got it through illegal unlawful means. We don't have much information for the cases you mentioned. Currently, we don't have much information but we are against the unlawful practice of scalping in the ticket sales.

Reporter from Japan

Who will be visiting Beijing during the Games? How many of such heads do you expect?

Wang Shilin

The Beijing Olympic Games has attracted the attention from all over the world. Some of the sovereign representatives of the government and state will come here for the Opening Ceremony for the Games-time. The numbers we got is changing. We still don't have the specific number. But I can tell you that the sovereign representative and heads of state of the government will be received in an orderly and efficient manner. The number is much higher than those in the previous Games.

Sun Weide

Not long ago, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China had a press conference on this point. Apart from the sport ministers, heads of state and government and the sovereign representatives, the number will range about 80-90 basically.

Beijing Daily

Among the services provided by the International Relations Development, what are those that are innovative and have not been provided before?

Wang Shilin

All the services we provide, for instance, the arrivals and departures, we have set up special teams taking care of the arrival and departure of all the Olympic Family members. This has never been done in the previous Games. This is also a reflection of the priority paid to that matter. The reception of the sports ministers is what we called the T3 service. The coaches and the transportation need to be reserved in advance. We are going to provide dedicated transportation vehicles. In addition, we also have a special volunteer taking care of the sports minister, which has never been seen before.

Also Multi-language service center is also something unprecedented. We aim to solve the communication difficulties when the Olympic Games is be held in the east. Also the visa help service and many of our services had been transferred to the front line at the airport to give them direct service.

Xinhuanet.com

To follow up on the question of ticket. BOCOG said they are going to combat the speculation of the ticket. Many people have been pilling up for the tickets. How do we handle the speculators of the tickets? We have seen a lot of requests of the information of the website. Third, what is the proper way to get the tickets when the tickets have been all sold out?

Sun Weide

We are going to contact the Ticketing Department about the specifics of the speculation at the Ticketing Department. We encourage people to get tickets through lawful means. On the first time we sold out the tickets, we set up the special website. We encourage people to go to Bank of China for the tickets. We have made the tickets in a special way with some anti-forgery techniques. We have applied high-technology to the printing of tickets. We have used some ways to disseminate information through the media, press, conference, telling people to buy from lawful channels.