Westward Ho to Expo 86

By Barbara Rudolph.

Two years ago, the waterfront along Vancouver's False Creek, a narrow inlet off the city's main harbor, was covered with rusting railroad tracks and a few ramshackle factories. Garbage was strewn everywhere. Today the 173-acre site is the home of Expo 86, the Canadian world's fair that opens May 2 and runs through Oct. 13. The fair's theme is transportation, and visitors will be able to gaze at exhibits ranging from a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft to a Japanese high- speed passenger train that can travel more than 250 m.p.h. Moored in the harbor are dozens of boats and ships, including a Malaysian canoe and a Portuguese fishing boat. The Chinese pavilion features stones from the Great Wall and a 2,000-year-old bronze chariot.

Whether or not Expo 86 is an aesthetic triumph, it promises to be a business bonanza for British Columbia. The fair, which cost $1 billion to mount, is expected to attract more than 8 million visitors, some 60% from Canada and 35% from the U.S. The fair will undoubtedly generate a flurry of business for local hotels, car-rental firms, restaurants and the like. British Columbians hope that it will also serve as a powerful publicity tool, persuading businesses to open offices in downtown Vancouver and inspiring families to travel through the province on their next vacation. Says Carpenter Jim Hawkes: "Expo 86 is going to put us on the map." The region is in sore need of an economic boost: since the early 1980s, its two leading industries, lumber and mining, have been in a deep recession.

Unlike many previous world's fairs, including the poorly attended 1984 New Orleans fair, which filed for bankruptcy, the Vancouver exposition seems to be soundly financed, thanks largely to substantial government backing. British Columbia has invested $578 million in Expo 86, and the federal government in Ottawa has provided $180 million more. The fair's 34 corporate sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Eastman Kodak, General Motors and Xerox, have kicked in an additional $114 million.

Observers praise the financial management of James Pattison, president of the Expo 86 corporation, which has supervised development of the fair. Pattison has personally overseen thousands of details, approving every exhibit design and reviewing all cost estimates. One of his most impressive achievements: completing construction of the fair for $283 million, or $6 million under budget. Boasts Pattison, a 51-year-old entrepreneur who owns a Vancouver-based real estate, communications and financial services conglomerate, which had 1985 sales of $1 billion: "I'm not saying this is a no-risk proposition, but I think I can say that no world-class exposition has been better set up than this one."

Not everyone would accept that assertion. Indeed, the fair has been controversial from the start. Critics charge that the $1 billion investment would have been better spent elsewhere, or perhaps not at all. Many Canadians are also alarmed because the fair is expected to run up a $225 million deficit. Says Lewis Booth, an insurance agent in Vancouver: "At the end of the fair, we'll find we're all in hock up to our ears."

Expo officials are quick to dispute those claims, though. The deficit will cause no lasting damage, they insist, because it will be completely paid off within a year by revenues generated from sales taxes, a provincial lottery and the liquidation of Expo property. Says Pattison: "You can't put on a world- class expo and recapture your costs in 5 1/2 months. There's no way you can get your capital back in that time."

Companies play an important role in Expo 86. McDonald's spent $12 million, in part to build five restaurants at the fair. One, the so-called McBarge, is the chain's first floating fast-food establishment. IBM has installed its computers in booths around the fair; the machines will be able to answer hundreds of questions commonly asked by visitors. Eastman Kodak's outdoor arena will feature performances by Chinese motorcyclist-acrobats, among other acts. In addition to investing in their own pavilions, the fair's corporate sponsors have paid more than $700,000 each to use the fair's logo--white block letters that spell EXPO superimposed over the digits 86--in promoting their own products.

The ultimate effect of Expo 86 could be to transform Vancouver into a major tourist attraction. At least that is the fervent hope of public officials and private developers. Claude Richmond, minister of tourism for British Columbia, predicts that Expo 86 will generate somewhere between $2.5 billion and $3 billion worth of business in British Columbia this year. He is confident that the fair will help tourism surpass mining as the province's second largest industry. To cash in on the expected boom, developers have put up some 2,400 new hotel rooms in Vancouver during the past three years alone, boosting the city's guest-lodging capacity by 10%. Tokyu Canada, for example, recently completed its $100 million, 23-story Pan Pacific Hotel.

Such ambitious projects would have seemed farfetched eight years ago, when the idea for a fair was first discussed among businessmen and politicians in Vancouver. The original notion was to develop "Transpo 86," a modest $80 million transportation exposition that would mark Vancouver's 100th anniversary. The project grew prodigiously under the guidance of Expo Commissioner-General Patrick Reid, who has been responsible for monitoring the Canadian government's investment in the festival. Taking quite literally the project's slogan, "Invite the World," he eventually persuaded 54 nations to participate in Expo 86. Among them: the Soviet Union, Cuba, Costa Rica and Kenya.

The organizers argue that Canadians will get some lasting returns for their investment in Expo 86. When the fair is over, the Canada pavilion will become a convention center, and about 250 meetings have already been booked for the next ten years. The fair's cruise-ship dock will remain in operation. In addition, Vancouver residents are already benefiting from the fact that work on several publicly financed projects has been accelerated to meet the opening of the world's fair. Among them: a rapid-transit skytrain that travels through downtown Vancouver and the new Cambie Street Bridge over False Creek.

Timing is crucial in mounting a major exposition, of course. In this respect, the backers of Expo 86 must feel blessed. The fair is opening at a time when traveling in Canada is a real bargain for Americans. The U.S. dollar is trading at a ten-year high: $1.38 Canadian. In addition, as more and more Americans and Canadians cancel their plans to travel to Europe this summer out of fear of terrorism, they are scrambling for alternate itineraries. Vacationing in Vancouver could prove a popular choice.

With reporting by Peter Stoler/Vancouver