The Tour de France
“The Tour de France bid is an important signal for the sport city of Düsseldorf, and the right one. As a city of sport, cosmopolitan and financially strong Düsseldorf must stake its claim as a metropolis that has to be taken seriously in international competition for world-class sporting events.
The Tour is the third-biggest sporting event in the world after the Olympic Games and the football World Cup. This cycling event gets TV coverage in over 180 countries; fantastic images are broadcast. In addition, over 450 newspapers and 80 radio stations are accredited at the event.
That means the Tour de France is ideal city marketing and also a great way of promoting tourism. Apart from the huge Tour retinue itself, hotels, restaurants and retailers can also look forward to fans from all over the world. Around one million visitors are expected to line the route of the Grand Départ, the start of the Tour. A major sporting event of this kind will create a boom for local business, and will send out important signals with regard to how bicycle transport is developing in this city.
Party political debates cannot be allowed to threaten the interests of the city as a whole, so I call on all political parties in Düsseldorf to vote in favour of the Tour de France – which is also a vote for Düsseldorf as a city of sport!”
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