Jet Set Bring the World to Rio

(ATR) The Olympics would be nothing without the fans, and Rio 2016 will be the 18th consecutive Olympic Games in which world-leaders Jet Set Sports have provided people from all over the world the ultimate Games experience.

Its founder and now chairman and co-CEO, Sead Dizdarevic, began providing Olympic hospitality services by organizing the travel and Games experiences for Americans traveling to his home country, Yugoslavia, for the 1984 Olympic Winter Games in Sarajevo. Since then, they have helped more than 1.2 million fans see the action first-hand.

In Rio, the Jet Set/CoSport team in Rio includes more than 550 people. They provide customized hospitality programs for sponsor and other corporate groups; tailored experiences for individual fans, including meals and activities in between the events they want to see; packages with a combination of tickets, hospitality and accommodation as well as online ticket sales for residents in the countries where they are the authorized ticket reseller.

"Our guests expect their experiences outside the venues to be as exciting as they are inside them," said Alan Dizdarevic, co-CEO of Jet Set Sports. "That requires a lot of work, experience and coordination, and we aim to exceed their expectations, regardless of the limitations the host city presents us with."

Jet Set hosts a big hospitality center near Barra Olympic Park as well as an exclusive pop-up restaurant staffed by celebrity chefs at the Grand Mercure hotel in Barra.

While there is a strong front-of-house presence from the cheerful Jet Set staff throughout Rio, the work going on behind the scenes is immense.

"It takes years of preparation, hundreds of people’s efforts – and a lot of creativity – to make this work," Dizdarevic said.

"Fulfilling what seems like a simple, ordinary request can actually be unbelievably challenging when there are about 30 world championships happening in the same city, at the same time. But that’s what we aim to do.

"You know that saying: Don’t ever let them see you sweat? Trust me, we spend a lot of time wiping our brows, but it’s all worth it when we deliver and see the smiles on our guests’ faces."

Written by Alice Wheeler in Rio de Janeiro.

Forgeneral comments or questions, click here.

20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about theOlympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribersonly.