PRCA Leaders' Panel reveals Olympics travel concerns

In a PRCA PR Leaders’ Panel, 60% of responding in-house and agency heads said that their biggest challenge during the Olympics would be travel disruption.

Alongside that finding, close to a third of PR Leaders believed that LOCOG’s communications strategy had been ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ – somewhat higher than the number who criticised TfL’s communications (22%).

Despite this, 58% of respondents believed the Olympics would be a PR success story for the UK, and less than a quarter (24%) believed business levels would suffer during the Games.

Francis Ingham, chief executive of the PRCA, said: ‘PR Leaders have delivered a balanced judgement on the Olympics so far. There is significant criticism of LOCOG, and even more so of TfL. And they recognise that they are going to have to wrestle with traffic issues.

‘But they also see the bigger picture – that the Olympics will be a success story. It’s a pity TfL and LOCOG couldn’t have worked more effectively to remove those negative elements altogether, and make the Games even more of a success than most people expect them to be.’