63% of Koreans believe the PyeongChang Olympics will be a success

By Baek Byung-yeul

With less than eight months to go before the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, more Koreans believe the country’s first-ever Winter Games will be successful, a survey showed Tuesday.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism conducted a survey of 1,000 people for two days on May 26 and 27 and 62.9 percent answered the PyeongChang Olympics would succeed. This is a 7.8 percent increase from the first survey conducted in April. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent level of confidence.

While 14.2 percent said they were pessimistic about the PyeongChang Olympics in the first survey, only 7.2 percent said so this time.

For the quadrennial event, which is scheduled for Feb. 9-25 in the resort town of PyeongChang next year, 69.7 percent answered the new Moon Jae-in government will have a positive effect on the nation’s successful hosting.

The poll showed that 61.8 percent answered public interest of the event is the most important factor for its success, followed by infrastructure with 17.9 percent, visitor convenience with 10.9 percent and capability of the working staff with 5.3 percent.

The poll also still showed only 40.3 percent said they are interested in the event, which is 4.7 percent increase from the first survey.

For those who answered they are aware of the PyeongChang Olympics coming to the country, 65.9 percent said they also know the PyeongChang Paralympics will take place after the Olympics. But only 25.7 percent said they are interested in the multi-sport event involving athletes with a range of disabilities. Meanwhile, 14.1 percent said they are aware of the two Olympic mascots -- the white tiger Soohorang and the Asiatic black bear Bandabi.

Among the respondents, 8.9 percent said they would visit the Olympic venues to watch the games and among the individual events at the Olympics, 39 percent said they are interested in purchasing tickets for the short track events, followed by the opening ceremony with 31.4 percent, ski jumping with 29.8 percent and figure skating with 26.6 percent.

Koreans also showed increased interest in ice hockey as 22.7 percent said they would like to purchase tickets while only 5.6 percent said they would in the first survey. The sports ministry said this is because the Korean national men’s ice hockey team earned a promotion to the top-flight International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championship beginning next season.

The sports ministry added it will conduct three more surveys through December to reflect relevant feedback.