For Olympic host cities, it is always a big challenge to ensure the venues will be used after the Games. The government of Athens is still paying the maintenance bills for some Olympic venues five years after the 2004 Olympiad. Some venues for the Sydney Olympics in 2000 are left vacant, with a few starting to sell off their construction materials. After hosting the Winter Olympics in 1998, Nagano in Japan has struggled with the financial burden of paying the costly maintenance bills for the venues. With all these examples it is only natural that people around the world have doubts about the fate of Beijing's Olympic legacy.

One year on, the comforting news is that most venues in Beijing have been developed for tourism, fitness activities and major sports events, sending an auspicious signal for their future operation.

Actually, Beijing's efforts to avoid falling into the trap of building white elephants started shortly after its successful bid to host the Games in 2001. While compiling its investment plans on Olympic venues' construction, Beijing made two major revisions by reducing the numbers of newly built venues and expanded venues and adding eight temporary venues.

The city led the way in China in introducing non-government investment in venue construction and management rather than following the old way of granting venues' management rights to sports authorities after the Games. The diversified investment structure has reduced government's financial risks. Investors' operation risks were also minimized since the future use was taken into consideration when the venues' blueprints were drawn. This model was adopted on major venues, including the National Stadium (Bird's Nest) and National Aquatics Center (Water Cube).

People's enthusiasm to visit Olympic venues has far exceeded anyone's expectations. For some time after the Games, the two iconic venues, the National Stadium and the National Aquatics Center, became the most visited spots in Beijing, with a daily tourist flow surpassing that to the Forbidden City. However, we have also to realize that post-Games tourism is only one way to utilize Olympic venues. Managers of Olympic installations in Beijing and other cities still need to explore other means to allow more people to use these facilities.