BEIJING, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Imagine that you come to China to participate in the Olympic Winter Games next February, take a high-speed rail while transferring from one competition zone to another, taste local food during your stay and return to where you come from after your Olympic journey concludes.
All of these imagination will not be possible without high-quality services in areas such as the arrival and departure, transportation, accommodation and catering from the organizers, who are striving for delivering a simple, safe and splendid Games with less than two months to go.
As international flights have experienced a reduction due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has drawn many people's attention about how to safeguard Olympic participants' safety in international travel.
Zhang Liang, director of the Arrival and Departure Center of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (BOCOG), told a press conference on Friday that the Arrival and Departure System for Beijing 2022 has been set up to gather information about participants' arrival and departure plans, and it has been experimented during test events recently.
Charters and temporary flights are a main channel of transporting overseas participants to China for the Games, while they will be supplemented by business flights with the Beijing Capital International Airport as their first entry point, organizers said.
Some Chinese and foreign airline companies will run temporary flights between Beijing and 15 other cities during game time.
According to Zhang, during the test events staged between October and December, the task force group has fulfilled its mission of safeguarding 71 inbound and 57 outbound flights up to Dec. 9, and its staff have garnered experience in handling different situations.
"We believe this system can lay out a good foundation in game time with accurate and timely data," he said.
Zhao Tong'an, deputy director of the BOCOG's Transport Department, said transportation will be provided to registered personnel between Jan. 21 and March 16, 2022, and a part of it will get running from Jan. 4, 2022 for those who have already arrived in China.
Transportation teams in areas such as venue transportation and high-speed rail safeguarding have been founded, and have gone through exercises during the test events.
Over 4,000 vehicles are in place to help transport Olympic participants, with most of them powered by new energy and clean energy.
The organizers have paid great importance to the epidemic prevention and control in arriving and departing and transporting process.
Apart from some anti-virus measures prior to their departure, Olympic-related personnel are required to have body temperatures monitored and PCR tests before their entry in a bubble through a closed loop.
Some measures concerning transportation will be adopted, with shuttle buses not exceeding 50% of their capacity. As for high-speed rail, specific carriages and waiting zones will be arranged for personnel in closed-loop management.
As the Beijing 2022 coincides with China's Spring Festival, organizers aim to offer a homecoming sense for all participants and bring a festive atmosphere to them, with various dishes provided to meet the different dietary needs of athletes.
Some local food, including Beijing roast ducks and glutinous rice balls, will be offered to get Olympic participants better aware of the Chinese cuisine, said Yu Debin, head of the Games Service Department of the BOCOG.
Anti-virus measures such as social distancing and hand disinfection facilities will be in place in dining halls, according to Yu. Enditem
