Essential Travel Tips for Canada’s Winter Olympics
The Canada Winter Olympics in 2010 is promising to be quite an event. It seems every year that opening ceremonies get bigger, brighter and more spectacular; world records are broken in a more amazing fashion, and crowds get bigger. However, there is also heightened awareness of security every year, especially in the last decade. If you’re travelling to Canada’s Winter Olympics, we give you some of the inside info on travel insurance.
All About the Canada Winter Olympics
The Olympic Cauldron will be lit in Vancouver on February 12, 2010, marking the official start of the games. All of the regular Winter Olympic sports are on the agenda: ice hockey, alpine and cross-country skiing, ski jumping, snowboarding and figure and speed skating will be heavily attended. There are also a couple of relatively new sports included for this set of games, like Skeleton and Luge.
The Olympics in Vancouver are being held in one of the most picturesque locations ever seen in a host city. That location, however, is also causing a lot of speculation about whether conditions will be suitable for snow-based and other outdoor events. The Opening Ceremony, and traditionally high demand events like medal rounds in figure skating and ice hockey have been booked solid for months.
Potential Security Issues
The profile of the Winter Olympics makes it a target for potential terrorist or anarchist demonstrations, as well as those of other special interest groups. The torch relay, which began on the 30th of October last year (yes, that is a massive run!), has already been marred by minor demonstrations. However, these certainly were not on the scale of Beijing’s Olympics and the Tibet issue, which went off relatively undisturbed.
Do look out for demonstrations, which can quickly turn violent with the help of crowd mentality. There will be around 6,000 security personnel on hand in the Olympic vicinity to keep eventgoers safe. Don’t skimp on the travel insurance, however – an upgrade often costs less than you think it would, and is a sensible precaution in the current international climate.
Potential Logistical Issues
We already mentioned that the opening ceremony and high demand events have been booked solid for some time. If you have made any travel plans on the basis of attending these particular events, you may want to rethink them. Logistics-related travel insurance claims can only be paid if outside circumstances prevent you from fulfilling your hotel booking (or other bookings), not because of failure to plan ahead.
You’ll also want to make sure that your online travel insurance policy, or your car rental insurance policy, covers everybody who will be driving your rental car. After Manhattan, Vancouver has the highest population density in North America – so you can imagine the traffic around the Olympics time!
Recommended Level of Travel Insurance
Given the issues that travelers might encounter at the Vancouver Olympic Games, we’d recommend looking for the following in an online travel insurance policy:
- Full medical travel insurance coverage – the risk of catching an illness in cold conditions, surrounded thousands of other people, is high
- Logistical travel insurance coverage – the fact that accommodation is at a premium in and around the Games venues (and in the entire city!) means that you could be up for considerable extra costs if you have a logistical problem.
The highest level of travel insurance cover, which offers catastrophe cover, hijack benefit, search and rescue expenses, mugging benefit and resumption of trip benefits may not be needed here … however, it only costs a little extra and could add to your peace of mind.
