Fifth in a series

Staff writer

NAGANO -- Is hosting the Olympics profitable? And if so, for whom?

With the 16-day Winter Games starting today, hotels here are fully booked and bars and restaurants in downtown Nagano are bustling with out-of-town customers.

However, to the local residents, who will have to foot a considerable part of the bill, the world event may not seem all that beneficial. Nagano is now heavily in the red, and each household in the city of Nagano was effectively 3.5 million yen in debt as of March, a jump from 1.5 million yen at the time when Nagano was selected as this year's host in 1991.

Each household in Hakuba, a village of some 9,500 people that will host ski jumping, and alpine and cross-country skiing, will owe the equivalent of about 5.5 million yen. Hakuba residents will have to repay the debt over the next 20 years through taxes, experts said.

For the resort village, with its 850 accommodation facilities, the number of skiers visiting every winter is a critical income factor. Hoping the Olympics will further invigorate the already-popular ski resort, some Hakuba hoteliers rebuilt or refurbished their inns -- a move that proved a mistake.

"We refurbished our hotel a year ago in preparation for the Games. But the number of customers this season is about a quarter of a regular season," said Azusa Maruyama of the Bergtour Marukita hotel.

The negative results are due to widespread rumors that Olympic authorities will heavily restrict traffic and use of the slopes in Hakuba, 30 km west of the city of Nagano, she said. When Nagano was chosen to host the Olympics seven years ago, the city of 362,000 residents had almost no facilities or competition venues suitable for the Games.

In the city alone, five competition venues, two media facilities, an Olympic village and stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies have since been built. Apart from land costs, the cost of building Olympics-related facilities and infrastructure -- the Nagano Shinkansen Line and expressways -- was estimated at 1.36 trillion yen in 1996, according to the Nagano Economic Research Institute, a think tank under Hachijuni Bank, one of the Games' sponsors.

The institute claimed the investment would eventually bring in 2.33 trillion yen and create 297,000 jobs. The positive results, however, have only been temporary for local residents -- many contractors are out of work now that front-loaded public construction projects have been completed.

In January, 508 construction workers lost their jobs in the prefecture. The figure is 3.4 times greater than in the same month last year, according to the Nagano Prefectural Government.

Most employees attribute this to the end of Olympics-related construction and the decrease in other public works projects, it said. "Well, there were jobs in the last couple of years. But we were just subcontractors," said a spokesman for the Nagano Building Contractors Association, a group of 839 construction companies in the prefecture. "In fact, it was major general contractors that milked most of the profits," he said.

Construction of the 33.7 billion yen M-Wave speed-skating arena was led by Tokyo-based Kajima Corp., while Osaka-based giant Obayashi Corp. headed the building of the Spiral, the track for the bobsled and luge, which cost 9.3 billion yen. Granted, Nagano residents may draw some benefits from the Olympics preparation. The new bullet train line offers nonstop service between Tokyo and Nagano within 80 minutes.

New expressways and other improved roads lead straight to ski resorts stretching from JR Nagano Station, shortening access to the popular slopes to within an hour or so. But most local residents in this quiet city tucked away in the mountains do not travel often to Tokyo or to ski resorts, said Masao Ezawa, leader of the Anti-Olympic People's Network.

Then who is cashing in on the shinkansen and expressways? The Seibu and Tokyu conglomerates, Ezawa said. Seibu effectively holds title to Shiga Kogen ski resort area, and Tokyu essentially owns Hakuba ski resort. "It's as if they have succeeded in ensuring that all the accesses were made with taxpayers' money," he said.

Shiga Kogen Prince Hotel, which belongs to the Seibu group, headed by former Japan Olympic Committee Chairman Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, is expecting at least a 10 percent increase in the number of guests over previous seasons, a hotel spokesman said.

One of four so-called Olympic roads, which opened last October, directly connects JR Nagano Station with the Shiga Kogen Prince Hotel. Shiga Kogen, which will host venues for alpine skiing and snowboarding -- a medal sport this year -- is located 50 km northeast of JR Nagano Station.

Karuizawa, the prestigious summer resort 50 km southeast of JR Nagano Station, is another area in which Seibu has invested heavily. The town hosts the curling venue.

Near the Seibu-owned Karuizawa Prince Hotel, some Nagano-bound bullet trains, which debuted in October, make a stop. "The Nagano shinkansen certainly has increased our customers," said a hotel spokesman, declining further comment. "It's hard to tell who will benefit the most from the Olympics, but I can clearly say it's Nagano citizens who lost the most," said Ezawa, a resident of the city.