ABSTRACT
Special events provide important recreational opportunities for local communities. In many destinations, they form a fundamental component of the destination’s tourism development strategy. There are many types of special events and it is quite difficult to find an all-embracing definition. For present purposes, special events are defined as ‘one-time or infrequently occurring events of limited duration that provide consumers with leisure and social opportunities beyond their everyday experience’ (Jago and Shaw 1998: 29). Special events of one kind or another have played an important role in the economic and
social development of communities internationally for many years. In recent years there has been a substantial increase in the number and type of special events (Getz 2005, 2008). This growth is due largely to the emphasis being placed on regional economic development and destination marketing by many governments and tourism marketing organisations (Cornelissen and Swart 2006; Cornelissen 2007). Special events increase the opportunities for new expenditure within a host region by attracting visitors to the region (Dickinson et al. 2007). They are acknowledged to potentially stimulate business activity, creating income and jobs in the short term and generating increased visitation and related investment in the longer term. For the purpose of this paper we take the ‘economic contribution’ of an event to refer either
to its ‘economic impact’ or its ‘net economic benefits’. While event researchers and commentators often take these concepts to be the same, we shall argue that they are quite different, requiring different approaches to their measurement. Governments are often asked to provide financial support for special events including
the allocation of substantial funds to provide or upgrade the facilities required to stage the event. As a consequence, governments will generally require credible forecasts of the event impacts and comprehensive evaluations after the event. The theoretical basis of economic impact assessment of special events is to be found in the pioneering work of Burns et al. (1986) in their study of the Adelaide Grand Prix. Since then, refinements have been made by several authors including Getz (1987), Crompton and McKay (1994), Crompton (1995), Dwyer and Forsyth (1997), Delpy and Li (1998), Mules (1999), Dwyer et al. (2000, 2004, 2005, 2006a, 2006b).
