Thursday, 23 February 2012

Rugby World Cup in Taranaki

The following report was released in December of 2011, and I've bumped into it by accident.

Economic Impact of RWC 2011 in Taranaki released

What is particularly interesting about this report is the point made by the CEO of Venture Taranaki that it was a credit to the region that the actual economic impact of the event (calculated as a total impact of $16.24m, with a value added of $6.74m) exceeded the original projections made in 2009 (a total impact of $12m with a value added of $5.24m).

A closer inspection of the figures reveals a rather interesting and somewhat puzzling finding, given the nature of the release itself. The 2009 projections were made by BERL and projected a direct impact of $7.69m. This direct figure is, according to the report, the increase in spending by visitors that is attributed to the RWC. The 'actual' 2011 figures are calculated by TSMR (a quick web search failed to reveal what this acronym stands for) and found a direct impact of $7.68m. Yes, the direct spending was actually $10,000 less than originally projected! The indirect effects are considerably larger in 2011 ($8.56m) than in 2009 ($4.31m). Had the structure of the Taranaki economy changed so much in two years that the indirect impacts doubled from what turned out to be the same direct impact? Or does the answer lie in different multipliers being used for the two analyses? I tend to lean towards the latter.

It would appear, based on what I can see, that Taranaki met economic impact projections, rather than exceeded them. Not a bad result, all the same.

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