Understanding and Enhancing the Economic Yield of Sporting Events

In conjunction with the AUT Division of Sport and Recreation's Geoff Dickson, NZTRI four events in 2005: the Kururau Krusher multisport race in Taumaranui, the Women's Special K Triathlon in Taupo, the ARC 12 & 24 hour race in the Coromandel, and the ASB Waiheke Island Challenge. This research forms part of our T.R.A.C.E. (Tourism Research & Community Empowerment) programme and studies the economic impact of visitors to small regional towns to compete in ‘micro’ sporting events. The research involved surveying businesses and administering a web based survey to competitors. The data collected will feed into an online calculator on our T.R.A.C.E. website, allowing communities and event organisers to automatically calculate what economic impact an event in their town would have.

Considerable research has been conducted on the economic impacts of mega sports events such as the Olympics and World Cup soccer. In real terms though many people in New Zealand are more likely to feel the impacts created by much smaller 'micro-events' which create publicity and breath much needed income into regional/ rural areas. This research aims to improve our understanding of the role that these events can play in local economic development. The project will also create a web-based system that can enable communities to better understand and estimate the impacts associated with micro-events.

Objectives
The focus of the research is three fold:
- to ascertain the economic impact of a particular micro-event;
- to develop and refine economic impact analysis methodologies, and;
- to commence the creation of a web-based 'tool-box' that can assist local stake-holders in getting a better understanding and estimating the economic impact of sporting events.

Triathlon (swim, bike, run), and multisport (swim, bike, run and kayak), events are the types of events targeted for this research because they are usually based in rural or regional communities. They also represent a rapidly growing segment of the sports events market place, a trend which is likely to increase with NZs recent multi-sport successes in Athens.

The New Zealand Tourism Research Institute website www.tri.org.nz has comprehensive information on the research we have conducted in the past with reports available online. For further information on the current research project contact: tina.buch@aut.ac.nz.