English culture secretary Tessa Jowell said yesterday that London’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was good enough to win but that the contest will “go down to the wire”.

Speaking at the Olympic Opportunities conference in London alongside London 2012 chair Sebastian Coe, she said: “With only six months to go we need a sprint finish that even Kelly Holmes, or you, Seb, would be proud of.”

Delegates at the conference, held at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre in London on 17 January, were told that staging the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London would bring “unparalleled opportunities” for thousands of businesses – with Jowell stressing that the whole country will benefit, not just London.

“It’s not about what the Games can do for London, but what they can do for the whole of the UK,” she said.

“The development of the infrastructure for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games and the supply of goods and services will provide unique opportunities for business across many sectors right around the UK,” added Lord Coe.

“Whether you are a clothing manufacturer in Bolton, a technology company in Cambridge, a sports equipment manufacturer in Swansea, a catering company in Aberdeen, a landscape gardener from Dorset or an entertainment group from Leeds, you can benefit from a London Games,” he said.

Other speakers at the conference included Sir Steve Redgrave; Simon Clegg, chief executive of the British Olympic Committee; Jude Kelly, chair of London 2012’s culture and education advisory committee; Sandra Nori, tourism minister for the NSW government in Australia which funded the 2000 Sydney Olympics and Jim Sloman, chief operating officer of Sydney 2000.

Sandra Nori claimed that the business possibilities that come with hosting the Olympics are huge: “The experience from Sydney showed that New South Wales business won the equivalent of £400m in contracts for the Games, over £115m from regional companies with 55,000 people receiving employment-related training. Queensland business also won the equivalent of £150m worth of Olympic Games related business.”

She added that the country had also seen substantial growth in convention business as soon as it was named as the host city.

Charles Allen, vice chair of London 2012 said that UK-wide polls showed the Olympic bid was now backed by more than 75 per cent of the population.

Kenny Boyle, international marketing director of VisitBritain added that hosting the 2012 Olympic Games would provide a once in a lifetime opportunity for British tourism to raise its profile in the eyes of the world.

He said that there was no better way to highlight what the nation has to offer to countries where the UK does not appear in their top 10 destinations.

“Surveys have shown that people who haven’t been here perceive the British as cold and aloof so we must give tourists and the 75,000 visiting journalists a warm welcome and show them what we have to offer,” he said.

More than £6bn has been invested in our cultural and heritage attractions in the last few years,” he said. “It’s not that London deserves to host an event like the Olympics, but that the Olympics deserves a stage like London.”

He added that there would still be tourists coming to Britain in the summer of 2012 who would not want to watch the Olympics, and that they must not be put off or be deterred by a belief that process will be at a premium.”

Bob Cotton, chief executive of the British Hospitality Association said that a price cap has already been agreed with major hoteliers.