Full coverage: Press conference on 3rd phase of Olympic ticket sales

Wang Hui

Now let's proceed with questions from the reporters.

UPI

I was wondering if you could give us a breakdown of the first two rounds of tickets; how many have been sold in Beijing, how many in other places in China. Can you give us a list of other regions and cities selling tickets and how sales have gone there -- could you give the top 3 or 5 cities in terms of sales, and do you foresee those trends to continue in third round of domestic ticket sales. The second part of my questions is that I don't know if you have the information to answer questions regarding foreign ticket sales, but I'm wondering if, in light of cities seeing protests during the torch relay, have those protests had a negative impact on tickets sales in those cities abroad? Thank you.

Zhu Yan

Thank you for your question. About your first question for the domestic sales, the system is unified so it is very difficult to exactly tell where the buyers are from—whether they are from Beijing or Shanghai or any other place. I think if you want information for the first two rounds of tickets, in the last phase of getting the tickets, quite a number of people chose to get the tickets in Beijing, so we may consider that of the provinces of China, Beijing will have the most tickets sold. That is our very broad judgment for the third phase. For the tickets to be sold on the spot we estimate that the local public buyers will outnumber outsiders who live outside of the city. That information is in accordance with the experience of previous Olympic Games.

For the second question -- about sales abroad -- we know that Olympic tickets are very hot products. Especially for some hot spots, in different countries and different regions there have been some differences in terms of hot spots or hot sales because some nations are more interested in some sports. But on the whole, the enthusiasm for the tickets is very high. The main pressure at the moment is to provide more tickets to overseas ticket buyers. Overseas ticket sales are arranged through their local Olympic Games committees or agencies. The selling process is still undergoing changes, and we cannot close the door yet. The Beijing Olympic Committee is still trying to dig out resources for the tickets so as to satisfy the worldwide demands.

AFP

Just a follow up to the second half of the last question: the tickets are indeed very rare overseas. I hear for example from some of the British, Australian and other teams, that they don't have enough tickets for even the families of the swimmers. For example, a 14-year-old diver's parents can't get enough tickets to come over. Do you think there's been a failure for overseas teams to come over here and is there anything you can do about that?

Zhu Yan

Your question is very important but I don't quite agree with your opinion. Let me explain -- for the Beijing Olympic Games, ticket sales are in accordance with the practice of the Olympic Committee in the past. For these Games, we have taken into full consideration the needs of people from outside areas. I can give you an example of this. For example, for the sales of tickets for this session of the Olympic Games, we have exceeded the guidelines of the IOC that there should be over 60 National Olympic Committee Customers.

Last time there were a bit over a hundred, but this time we have over 170 National Olympic Committees Customers for the Olympic Games. The IOC policy at this session of the Games made a big adjustment causing us many difficulties. In the past for all sessions they sold tickets in combination of hotspots and less concerned spots, but this time the IOC has, after hearing the opinions from various sides at the initial stage of the tickets sales, required us to try to satisfy the needs of various countries and regions.

Next, from the number of total amount of tickets, the structure of ticket sales has been adjusted. As I said, at the moment we have exceeded the Athens Olympic Games for assigning the tickets to the International Olympic Games Committee. Lastly, China is a big country and the Chinese public is also very enthusiastic for tickets. We will try to balance the demands from various sides. Our next step, as we are still opening up the sales, is that we are still cooperating with other National Olympic Games Committees and trying our best to satisfy their demands and needs. As for the details, we still need more communication and cooperation, and we will try our best to make sure to satisfy those people who really need tickets.

South China Morning Post

I'm sure there are other questions to ask about the ticketing system, but I want to ask about anti-counterfeiting measures. It seems there are some very high-tech anti-counterfeiting systems at work here, but at recent test events there were a lot of touts outside selling tickets. Can you give us some numbers regarding the number of people being arrested re-selling tickets that have already been sold, and also tell us what measures will be taken during game time to crack down on touts?

Zhu Yan

Thank you for your question. For these Olympic tickets, just now we showed that in the process of designing we have arranged a series of anti-counterfeiting measures against fake tickets. The general measures make the creation of fake tickets rather difficult and we are quite sure fake tickets will not be created, but if there are low-level fake tickets, I just want to remind ticket holders from the general public that you all need to go to official channels to purchase tickets. Secondly, we will show through the media and our consulting telephones our services to the general public.

As for the test events we haven't found fake tickets yet but indeed there are some who are scalping tickets. That has happened. BOCOG has reiterated on several occasions that for the Olympic tickets, we do not advocate the transfer sales and also in Chinese law making a profit from re-sales is forbidden and as far as I know, the relevant government agencies during test events have been cracking down on transfer of tickets. After May fifth, when buyers can get the paper Games tickets, BOCOG will coordinate with other government agencies to crackdown on fake tickets to make sure that sales of good tickets is in order and the rights of ticket holders will be guaranteed.

CCTV

Just now you mentioned that the transfer of tickets will be severely punished, but what if someone wanted to transfer tickets? Also, for the opening ceremony, tickets have been auctioned for 100,000 yuan. The sale of the tickets is rather heated. Are there going to be any reserved? And how many will be reserved? If I haven't been able to buy tickets for several rounds, will it be possible to buy tickets on the spot?

Zhu Yan

We want to reiterate that we strongly oppose the scalping of tickets. Normal transfer is allowed without changing the price. If you want to make money, according to Chinese laws that is illegal. Secondly, I just want to remind the general public that a lot of the online information is not true. Especially for the opening and closing ceremonies, the scalping will be heavier so we will make sure it is a real name system which will not give any room for the scalping. So according to the norms in the Games time in different venues, there will be a ticket sales counter that will continue to sell tickets. It basically depends on phase 3 and international sales. In general, we estimate that there will be some left over but can't guarantee for every session.

Bloomberg

Why is there a decision not to do a lottery for this third phase? What measures are being taken to prevent the same kind of problems that occurred for second phase and what is Mr. Zhu going to do that is different from his predecessor?

Zhu Yan

Well we have got only 100 days or so to go before the Opening Ceremony so for one thing we don't have enough time to have a lottery and to pay the money and confirm and everything like that. We just don't have that much time for that. Secondly if we refer to previous stage ticket sales, we can see some of the tickets that have been sold already and the remaining tickets through the first two rounds of the lottery. Thirdly, we can see that with the efforts of the ticket suppliers we are constantly optimizing this system and increasing our capacities to make more spare tickets. Also having done some tests, we are confident we can satisfy Phase 3 demands but of course will take some measures. We will make public in great detail those phase 3 specificities so you won't spend a lot of time searching on the internet and we will cooperate with the Bank of China to announce at any time when those tickets have been sold already. All of those measures have been rehearsed over the past few days, but hopefully we can provide you with very good service.

People's Daily

Just now Mr. Zhu has been answering all of the questions. I have a question for Wang Hui. Not long ago, foreign media reported that China has demanded all foreign students to leave China during the Olympic Games time. Can you confirm this?

Wang Hui

Well I can answer that question. I have also noticed that the foreign media reported that. And I've noticed some Chinese officials have already answered that this report is not true. I would say the reports are baseless because we did not ask them to leave China, but rather asked them to become volunteers and to participate. Foreign students will continue to be welcomed to China.