Key words: local economic impact, big event, European capital of culture, assessment of attendance

Transcription

1 LOCAL ECONOMIC IMPACT OF BIG CULTURAL EVENTS Ing. Peter Džupka, PhD., Ing. Miriam Šebová, PhD. Faculty of Economics, Technical university of Košice, Slovakia Key words: local economic impact, big event, European capital of culture, assessment of attendance Abstract: The cultural activities have not only a key cultural and social value, but also an interesting economic impact. The cultural sector nowadays represents a productive economic sector which is growing in importance. The paper is focused on the evaluation of big cultural event. In the paper is presented case study which is providing evaluation of big cultural event organized in Košice European Capital of Culture in 2013 using methodology provided by the impact studies in two stages: first through estimating the attendance and second through calculating private spending generated by the event. Introduction Cultural economics represents very specific disciplinary field and economists pay attention to its issues. This topic is strongly discussed between European scientists and politician not only because of growing economic importance of creative industries but also in connection with impacts of title European Capital of Culture on hosted cities. The starting point of the recent history of the European Capitals of Culture was probably the designation of Glasgow in 1990, which used its nomination to change a city that was in industrial decline. That model has been copied and cited over again. (Herrero et al., 2006) Similar objectives of the city regeneration were presented by the nomination of Košice as European Capital of Culture For the following reasons organizers prepared set of very innovative cultural events, which have potential to attract a lot of people and mediate for them the cultural values connected with title ECoC. One of the most popular cultural big event regularly organized in Košice since 2010 is White Night/Nuit Blanche. The paper is divided in two parts. In the first part are briefly mentioned the main aspects of impact studies methodology and its application to cultural events. In the second part is presented the case study focused on the estimation of the local economic impact achieved by event White Night in 2013.

2 1. The impact studies methodology The economic impact studies are used to estimate the economic importance of big cultural or sport events and important infrastructure project. Effects of hosting big events are mainly evaluated in two fields. First is to focus on the short-term impacts which have wide diversity in the range of economic and intangible positive and negative effects on city and local community. Second is to concentrate on the long-term impacts which concern to legacy of facilities construction and infrastructure improvements. (Barghchi et al., 2009) The economic impact studies are quite new topic in Slovak and Czech economic research, several authors published some articles to this topic e.g. Šipikal et al (2010) and Sucháček, Seďa (2011). The aim of impact analyses is to quantify additional incomes of big events on local economy using traditional impact measuring methods (used by e.g. LIRC, 2001, Cherubini Iasevoli, 2006). We provided our research according to often cited impact studies methodology developed by Crompton (2010). According to Crompton (2010) the economic impact of visitor spending is estimated by the formula: number of visitors * average spending per visitor * multiplier. In our calculation we didn t used the multiplier because of lack of data on local level. The result of these analyses is estimation of number and structure of visitors of event and also of theirs average and total expenditures. This estimation allows quantifying gross direct, indirect and induced impacts of the event. The level of economic impact could easily have been overestimated if a carefully structured working methodology had not been used. There is a general consensus that whilst measures related to economic impact assessment are conceptually simple, the actual collection of such information is extremely difficult and time consuming. (Bond, 2008) 2. The estimation of local economic impact of the selected event The event White night/ Nuit Blanche is special cultural project born in Paris and celebrated in Roma and other European capital cities, too. The event involves street performers and various artists which are presented their performances whole night. According to the above mentioned base formula of local economic impact we provided our research in three steps: 1. estimate the number of visitors attracted to the event 2. estimate the average level of spending of visitors in the local area 3. calculate of total additional income for local economy.

3 The challenging task was the counting of attendees. At the ungated event all performances are free and people are moving throughout the city during the whole night, so counting of attendees was really labour intensive. We used modified methodology of parade counts described in the Guidelines (2007). We have supposed that our parade that is expected to attract peak attendance would be new reconstructed City Park, where the most beautiful light performances took place during the night. Reconstruction of the City Park was one of the main infrastructural projects realized within the Košice ECoC 2013 projects. City Park is surrounded by a fence with six entrances. Therefore there was a possibility to count people coming to the city park. According to our counting visitors entered the City Park during the time between 07:00 p.m. and a.m. We have abstracted from the multiple entrance of one visitor to the city park. At the same time we provided a questionnaire survey among the White night visitors (522 tally interviews were collected during the night in the city). One of the questions in the interviews was, whether the respondent already was - or plans to visit City Park during the night. Our estimation White night attendees is derived from the combination of counting in City park and the information we captured in the tally questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to obtain basic information about the origin, socio-economic structure and expenditures of the visitors. Following chart shows our estimation about the visitors according to the geographical origin. As can be seen from the graphic, majority of visitors come from Košice, and nearly 20% are tourists coming from Slovakia. Only 5% of visitors were originating abroad. Similar results were achieved in impact study of White night in Roma (Cherubini, Iasevoli, 2006) with 6% of foreign visitors. TAB. 1: Geographical origin of visitors Local visitors (people living in Košice) 76% Slovak tourists 19% Foreign tourists 5% Source: own primary research 54% of attendees were men, 46% women. 50% people were in the age from 21 to 40 years etc. Our objective was to estimate the average expenditures of different target groups of visitors and to calculate the impact on local economy. According to the survey approximately 70% of local visitors did not spend any additional money due to the White Night. Chart n. 1 presents the average expenditures of visitors according to the basic groups of expenditures.

4 CHART 1: Average expenditures of visitors Source: own primary research The average was calculated only from visitors that have spent some money. The total average expenditures of local visitors were approximately 3,5 EUR per one visitor. According to these estimation we assume, that local visitors spent additional EUR in local economy during the White night event in Much higher were the expenditures of tourists because of accommodation and transport costs. The average expenditures of domestic tourist was approximately 32 EUR and of foreign tourist 225 EUR. The chart n.1 presents the average expenditures for each group in basic expenditure structure. As can be seen the main differences are in expenditures for accommodation, clothing, fuel and taxis. Based on these results we estimate that domestic tourists spent EUR and foreign tourist EUR. The direct economic impact of the event White night 2013 on the local economy in Košice city was approximately eur. Conclusion As the range of cultural events has grown in EU regarding to project European Capital of Culture, their impacts have increasingly come under the investigation of funders, policy-makers and scientists. Various evaluations and studies have found that big events have a variety of potential impacts, including economic, social, cultural, political etc. One of the main important results of impact studies is information about real number of attendees which used to be overestimated by organizers (attendance hyperbole). The organizers in Košice stated, that the

5 event attracted around people. The qualified estimation based on our research is much less - around attendees. Only 5% of the visitors were foreign tourists. Even so famous event like White night in combination with ECoC 2013 was not able to attract multitude foreign tourists into the Košice city. The economic impact is only one point of view, our further research would concentrate on wider socio-cultural impacts of selected big cultural event. Note: This article was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. APVV References: [1] HERRERO, L. SANZ, J.A. DEVESA, M. BEDATE, A. BARRIO, M.J.: The economic impact of cultural events. A case study of Salamanca, European Capital of Culture. European Urban and Regional Studies. 2006, vol. 13, no. 41, pp [2] BARGHCHI, M. OMAR, D. AMAN, M. : Cities, Sports Facilities Development, and Hosting Events. European Journal of Social Science. Volume 10, Number 2 (2009), pp ISSN [3] BOND, H.: Estimating the Economic Benefits of Event Tourism A Review of Research Methodologies. University of Manchester Impacts 08. European Capital of Culture Research programe. [4] CROMPTON, J.: Measuring the Economic Impact of Park and Recreation Services, Research Series 2010, National Recreation and Park Association, Texas University [5] CHERUBINI, S. IASEVOLI, G.: Stakeholders Event Evaluation:Notte Bianca Case Study. Convegno Le Tendenze Del Marketing In Europa. Università Ca Foscari Venezia, Gennaio 2006 [6] LEISURE INDUSTRIES RESEARCH CENTRE: An evaluation of the economic impact, place marketing effects and peoples' perceptions of Bristol. The 2001 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships & BUPA Bristol Half Marathon. Sheffield Hallam University UK. 41 pp. [7] RESEARCH RESOLUTIONS & CONSULTING LTD. : Guidelines: Survey Procedures for Tourism Economic Impact Assessments of Ungated or Open Access Events and Festivals ISBN

6 [8] ŠIPIKAL, M. - REHÁK, Š LABUDOVÁ, V.: Metódy a techniky regionálnej analýzy. Praktikum. Ekonóm, ISBN [9] SUCHÁČEK, J., SEĎA, P.: Territorial Marketing in the Czech Republic: Between Path- Dependency and Learnin, In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference Liberec Economic Forum 2011, Technical University of Liberec, pp Ing. Peter Džupka, PhD., Ing. Miriam Šebová, PhD. Department of Regional science and Management, Faculty of Economics, Technical university of Košice, B. Nemcovej 32, Košice, Slovakia Article was published in the The International Conference: Hradec Economic Days 2014, Economic Development and Management of Regions, Hradec Králové, February 4th and 5th, 2014, Peer - Reviewed Conference Proceedings Part IV. Available at