Visa Inc. says U.S. consumers drove $61.1 million in Visa cardholder spending in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, more than half of the total $115.3 million attendees spent locally on Visa cards during the event.
Spending on local travel, lodging, restaurants, entertainment and retail accounted for more than 92% of all Visa card spending during the games, Visa said. And total Visa card spending during the 17-day event was 93% higher than during the same period a year ago. The total number of Visa card transactions conducted in Vancouver during the event was 1.1 million, up 85% over some 59,500 transactions conducted locally during the same period last year.
Consumers from outside the U.S. accounted for about 47% of total Visa card spending in Vancouver during the games.
Among the top 10 countries whose cardholder spending Visa ranked, visitors from China were second with spending totaling $7.8 million, followed by the United Kingdom at $5.1 million, the Russian Federation at $4.3 million, Australia at $3.7 million, Japan and Korea at $3.6 million each, Hong Kong at $2.8 million, Norway at $2.4 million and Germany at $2.1 million.
Other countries Visa did not rank accounted for some $18.8 million in Visa card spending during the games.
