The international leg of the Olympic torch relay could be abandoned for 2012 during a debrief of the Beijing Games by the IOC next week. The chief guardians of the Olympic rings travel from Lausanne to London for four days of discussions starting on Monday about the lessons of last summer's Games. They will be joined by the organisers of the next three Games - in Vancouver in 2010, London and Sochi, Russia, in 2014 - representatives from the four 2016 bidding cities and the IOC's 12 leading sponsors. With more than 400 senior figures attending, it will be London's first logistical test as an Olympic city.

An issue to be resolved is whether host cities should follow the example of the Chinese by taking the Olympic torch around the world during the build-up to the Games. The torch's 130-day journey over 87,000 miles this year became a flashpoint for anti-Chinese protesters, who laid siege to its progress across five continents. The scenes of violence on the streets of London and Paris prompted one of the biggest crises in the IOC's history as threats of boycotts overshadowed the first Games to be held in China.

Although the hysteria subsided and the Beijing Olympics proceeded largely without incident, the negative publicity created by the relay and the damage it caused to the Olympic movement was enough to leave IOC members nervous about repeating the exercise.

London organisers are leaning towards a domestic-only relay, after the mandatory passage of the flame from its source in Olympia, Greece, to the host country. They prefer a tour of famous sporting locations in Great Britain, bringing the torch to within 30 minutes of the whole population, instead of a risky and high-profile international relay that would prove difficult to control against a fast-changing geo-political backdrop.

The experience of the relay is one of many lessons to be learnt from Beijing during a week the IOC likes to call a “knowledge transfer”. Other areas for discussion are security, catering, athlete accommodation, transport, venue management, technology and opening and closing ceremonies.

For the first time, Chinese Olympic organisers will give their assessment of their event to an audience of sports leaders unconstrained by political correctness.

Now that the Beijing Games are over, Olympic chiefs are expected to be more frank about what went right and what went wrong. Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, came under fire during the Games in August for failing to hint at criticism of his Chinese hosts as they failed to live up to the promises made when they were controversially awarded the Games in 2001.

The Olympic sponsors, such as Coca-Cola and Samsung, will have strong views about the negative impact of the relay on their brands and the relatively low exposure they received during the Games in return for multimillion-dollar investments. The lack of atmosphere on the vast Olympic Park in Beijing during the first week, caused by overzealous security and poor attendances at preliminary events, meant empty sponsor exhibitions and limited marketing opportunities.

London organisers are devising ways to ensure the park in Stratford, East London, is vibrant throughout the Games and accessible to people without tickets to the venues. A Wimbledon-style resale system is under consideration as a way to fill seats not taken up by sponsors or left empty by spectators leaving early.

London chiefs have been keen to lower expectations for the 2012 Games, whose venues will not be on the grand scale of Beijing. Despite meaningless comparisons caused by a gulf in budgets, the London organisers did pick up valuable logistical tips from Beijing. These included the efficient transport system, with athletes, officials and the media arriving at venues in “clean” buses, meaning they had to go through security screening only once.

London Olympic officials will also be questioned on the progress of the 2012 project. Games planning has been hit by the credit crunch, which has punched a £500 million hole in the construction budget of some of the key venues, such as the £900 million athletes' village and the £380 million media centre, as private sector money has drained away.