Deery, Margaret and Jago, Leo Kenneth (2010) Mega-sporting events : generating tourist spending, a preliminary assessment of three key 2010 events based on Visa payment card data. Other. VISA.

Abstract

We have engaged with the events sector and latterly UNWTO to better understand the impacts of mega-sporting events (MSEs). In this context, international payment cards – credit, debit and prepaid – play an important role in facilitating tourism. They ease the difficulties travellers face when making purchases in other countries and as a consequence, international payment card networks are now of substantial size and still growing. Visa’s network includes nearly 1.8 billion cards1, millions of merchant outlets, 1.7 million ATMs2 and 15,900 financial institutions3. This report looks to use electronic data generated from these transactions as an effective way to assess visitor spending patterns and impacts. It is clear that this can provide a rich source of material that can help destinations in their own planning, bidding and hosting activities. What is particularly encouraging is the strong indication that in all three MSE’s analysed for 2010, tourism related spending increased substantially during the events and far beyond any increases that can be attributed to economic recovery only.

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