Winchester businesses are gearing up for the 2012 Olympics with a full programme of events set to take the city by storm.

With thousands of tourists coming to these shores and a global audience of four billion, Winchester City Council and Winchester Business Improvement District are teaming up to promote tourism in the city.

Among the events will be an ‘Olympic Trail’ around city centre shops, a similar activity to the annual Easter egg hunt.

Families will be given passport-style stamp cards and encouraged to visit 20 shops which have all adopted a local athlete, collecting rubber stamps at each they visit.

While families are in the shops they will learn all about the particular athletes, which include Olympic heroes like Ben Ainslie, and when all 20 stamps are collected participants will receive gold medals.

But the trail plan has divided some members of the business community.

Tony Whyman, of Childhood’s Dream toyshop and chairman of the BID committee, said that the Olympics could distract customers away from businesses rather than promote them.

“I want to make sure there is no complacency and this does not become a negative,” he said.

But Gillie Boddy, of home furnishing store People Like Us in Parchment Street, said: “I agree that it does not have much commercial benefit but there are several things we put effort into we do not get anything out of commercially but we still like to feel part of the community.

“If we are trying to encourage people to support local businesses then we have to support local organisations and local athletes and we would love to adopt one at People Like Us.”

Other Olympic-related events coming up include a sports festival at Winchester Sports Stadium in Bar End on May 20 and the ‘Personal Best’ competition which will see 2,000 pupils from every school in the district take part in a variety of sporting events.

Meanwhile, the committee heard BID executive director Professor Chris Turner was due to meet city council officials next week for talks regarding the ongoing dispute between city centre retailers and the High Street market.