Kingston businesses and visitors to the town, are being asked to complete surveys about their experiences in the borough during the 2012 Games.

The survey, which asks visitors questions including how much they spent in Kingston during their visit and whether they thought the Olympics had brought a sense of community to the area, will form part of an Olympic impact report.

The aim is to reveal Kingston’s strengths and weaknesses when hosting the major international events the Olympic cycle road races and the cycling time trials.

Peter Garside, at Kingston University’s centre for economic and research intelligence (Ceri), has been leading the impact study in a project run jointly between Kingston University and the council.

He said: “It is critical.

"[It will make it clear] if there is a clear value in what it is they have undertaken in order to run an event of this type of size and scale.”

Dr Garside said once results from both the visitor and business surveys were collected, hopefully within the next few weeks, it should be possible to see how hosting high-profile events such as the Olympics may help to make money.

He added: “Effectively what we did initially was scope out the project by talking to everyone from the Go Kingston project and finding out their input into what was going on and what we could measure or look at.

“We agreed to run two surveys – one for visitors during Kingston events, and one for businesses to explore what the effect was on their business on the day of the races as well.”

It is thought another benefit will be to highlight how well partnerships between the police and the council are operating and help the town to host future big events.