(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) ExCeL London, owned by the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Company, or Adnec, is dressed and ready to host seven Olympic and six Paralympic Games during the London 2012 Games, starting from July 27.
The venue is decked with signboards and billboards that welcome athletes and visitors, and promote Abu Dhabi as a destination, including one of the biggest billboards in London.
"We want to welcome the world as well as participants in the London 2012 Games to ExCeL London. With our warm welcome, we are also promoting Abu Dhabi and demonstrating the enormous development and growth the Emirate has achieved in the past four decades," Adnec managing director Ali Saeed Bin Harmel said in a statement.
"The implied message is one of Abu Dhabi's successful investments; four years after acquiring ExCeL London, it is now hosting one of its world's most important and largest international sporting events."
Adnec made a 165 million investment into ExCeL London in 2010, which included the expansion of the venue by 100,000sqm. Adnec has also invested 48 million in building the Aloft London, which has been completely booked for more than three months by the London Local Organising Committee, or Locog.
Standing 10.4 metres tall and 34.6 metres wide, one of the largest billboards in London is being used by Adnec to welcome athletes and visitors, emblazoned with the words, "Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company, proud owners of ExCeL London " Welcomes the world!" With 70,000 people expected each day of the Games at ExCeL London, and conveniently located close to the DLR Metro Station that provides the main link between the venue and the centre of London, the billboard will be seen by tens of thousands of people each day.
The main objective of the Abu Dhabi and Adnec-branded billboards is to promote tourism and economic and trade to Abu Dhabi. Other signboards carried lines such as, "Welcome to the best seats on earth", "The world's greatest events at one of the world's greatest venues" and "The whole world under our roof".
Adnec, in coordination with Locog, has booked 19 billboards in total: six electronic billboards to welcome the visitors of ExCeL London in Prince Regent Station, six billboards at ExCeL London's western entrance, six billboards on the road leading from the DLR Station to ExCeL London's entrance and one large billboard which reads "The Whole World Under our Sky" placed by the taxi parking.
