Estimating the Impact of Events - Sampling Frame Issues in Identifying Event Related Expenditure
Date
2000
Authors
Burgan, Barry John
Mules, Trevor
Editors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type:
Conference paper
Citation
Events beyond 2000 : setting the agenda : proceedings of conference on event evaluation, research and education, July 2000 / John Allen, Robert Harris, Leo K Jago and A J Veal (eds.), pp.52-57
Statement of Responsibility
Barry Burgan and Trevor Mules
Conference Name
Events Beyond 2000: Setting the Agenda (2000 : Sydney, Australia)
Abstract
When undertaking an economic evaluation of a
major event there are two key issues that need to
be addressed to provide appropriate estimates of
economic impact. Firstly, one must provide an
estimate of how many people came to the event,
including why they came, and where they came
from. This area of questioning provides the basis
for estimating how much tourism has increased as
a consequence of the event. Secondly, information
is needed on how much the attendees spend during
their visit – leading to estimates of what they spend
because of the event.
The major methodological approach, particularly for
ex-post studies, has been to collect information by
survey. The next key issue is the process of
factoring the information for the survey up to
represent the population as a whole.
This might seem a simple issue to resolve but it
often proves harder than might be expected. Even
where an organiser has an accurate measure of the
attendances this does not represent the actual
number of people who might attend – due to
multiple or repeat attendances etc. It is made even
more complicated when we recall that in the
economic impact measure we are more interested
in attendance by visitors attracted to the
destination because of the event, than in overall
attendance. This paper considers the implications
of these issues within a random sampling approach
to surveying.
In the first instance we need an estimate of
aggregate attendance. In some cases the event
organisers have very accurate estimates (tickets
issued, turnstile counters). However this paper
considers some of the issues in taking the survey
results and applying them to aggregate
attendances, and suggests that there are some
sampling frame issues involved.
The second issue that arises is that in many cases, events encourage multiple attendances – and
different groups (eg visitors versus local
attendances) will have different patterns of
attendance. In this case the paper demonstrates
that in factoring survey information up to the
population level, the model must include an
adjustment to the proportions of attendance to
allow for 'bias'. The paper provides the 'rules' by which this adjustment must be performed.
Thirdly some more general issues that need
consideration in developing the sampling frame and
translating to the economic modelling are
discussed. These include difficulties introduced by using techniques such as proportional sampling in order to minimise standard error estimates of
overall expenditure, obtaining and using
information from ticketing, and issues in the
selection of interview sites.
School/Discipline
Business School
Dissertation Note
Provenance
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Access Status
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(c) Copyright Australian Centre for Event Management, 2000