Phone app continues promotion of Olympic city Coventry

The application is the latest item to be created by a Coventry firm for the Olympics

Coventry will be the first English city to host a 2012 Olympic event when the women's football tournament begins on 25 July.

It is estimated the Olympics will generate more than £80m for the local economy, the most for any city outside London.

Coventry is very much an Olympic city as it is also making the torch, which will return home as part of the relay.

A mobile phone application has now been developed as an interactive guide to experience London 2012 in Coventry.

Coventry City councillors have spent £8m on improvements in the city, which includes redesigning parts of the city centre.

'A proud history'

The free application is available on most major smartphone platforms and will also feature Olympic event listings in the city, the Cultural Olympiad programme and ticket information.

The application, developed by Coventry City Council and local firm Gemixin, includes details about the fixtures and teams, the Olympic torch relay and tourist attractions.

It also has an interactive map for people to plan routes to events.

Even though the Coventry Olympic application has only just been launched, it has already been downloaded more than 2,000 times around the world during a test trial period.

Council leader, Councillor John Mutton, said: "We have a proud history of innovation here in Coventry and this mobile app is the latest example of this.

"According to the Chamber of Commerce, the total contracts won across the West Midlands are worth £520m, for the Coventry and Warwickshire sub-region it's £80m.

"It's protecting existing jobs but is also leading to the creation of new jobs for local people."

'Wonderful moment'

Gemma McClean, managing director of Gemixin, said: "There are a lot of things going on in Coventry and Warwickshire; the live site [big screen in Millennium Place] events, Coventry Cathedral is having its 50th anniversary, the Godiva Awakes Cultural Olympiad project, so there's all information on all these events."

Peter Burns, vice president of the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce said: "If 360,000 people attend the 12 football matches, if they spend just £100 each, that's £36m into the local economy.

"If you do an overnight, the tourist thing, buy a meal, that figure can just go up and up and that's got to be brilliant for the economy in the area."

"We've got to make sure that we keep the momentum going after the Olympics and that's going to be one of the important things that we do because the Olympics is the start of the journey, not the end of it.

David Moorcoft, a Coventry Olympic Ambassador, added: "A significant number of businesses from our region have won major contracts that wouldn't have happened were the Olympics and Paralympics not coming to Britain.

"We hope there's going to be in the region of 300,000 people coming to Coventry. The West Midlands has been the most successful region from a business point of view outside of London with £520m."

"It will be a wonderful moment in our time for our city, a great moment in our history."