$3.4 Million generated in Economic Activity for London

Thursday, June 2, 2022: (LONDON, ON) …..London’s economy benefited from over $3.4 million in economic activity as a result of the successful hosting of the Canadian Country Music Awards (CCMA) on November 29, 2021 at Budweiser Gardens.  The Economic Impact Study, conducted by Sport Tourism Canada (STC), also indicated $3.9 million in economic impact for the province of Ontario. 

The study was commissioned by Tourism London with STC’s economic impact team managing the survey process and data collection. The STC team used the FESTPROeconomic impact assessment model to gather data to create spending profiles of event attendees. 

People attending were asked about age, place of residence, days attended etc. Out-of-town visitors were queried about their length of stay in the area, the amount of money they spent in various categories, as well as the importance of this event on their decision to travel to London. The largest age group attending was in the 25-34 age range, with the next largest group in the +55 age category. The majority of attendees lived in Ontario, with a few coming from other provinces and the USA.

The STC economic impact consultants then reviewed the data before processing it through the FESTPRO model and tabulating the results. The combined spending from out-of-town visitors, participants, media, and VIPs was then added to the capital and event operational expenditures to produce an overall determination of the expenditures associated with the event. When all of this data and information was combined, STC produced a detailed report outlining the results of the economic impact assessment in terms of total output, GDP, wages and salaries, employment and taxes.  

“Tourism London is proud to have hosted the 2021 CCMAs in November,” said Natalie Wakabayashi, Director, Culture & Entertainment Tourism London. “Safely hosting an in-person event in the midst of a pandemic, while also generating an economic impact of $3.4M at a time when our industry was decimated, was a tremendous win for our community.

“We were pleased to work with Tourism London to conduct this economic activity assessment,” said Grant MacDonald, COO, Sport Tourism Canada. “Using the expertise that was developed initially for sport events and seeing that it also accurately provided excellent data for the CCMAs, is rewarding for us. We know that the impact of major events is significant and having consistent methods to measure across Canada will elevate the credibility of the entire sector.”

Summary of Key Findings: 

• 3,676 out-of-town visitors to London
• $1.54 million of visitor spending
• $3.9 million in economic activity for the Province of Ontario
• $2.0 million boost to Ontario’s GDP 
• 25.6 jobs supported by the event
• $1.1 million wages and salaries supported locally
• $815,000 taxes supported across Canada 

The Canadian Country Music Awards were the sole reason for 84% of the attendees to visit London, with 69% of visitors spending an average of 2.9 nights in the city. Their visit was overwhelmingly positive with over 96% likely to visit London in the future, and over 90% would recommend London to others. People also indicated they felt quite safe at this event, held under Covid protocols in effect at the time.

About FESTPRO 

FESTPRO is a companion model to STEAMPRO, the economic impact model developed by Sport Tourism Canada, and used since 2002 on over 300 EI assessments from small-town sport events to major multi-sport and international games. FESTPRO incorporates actual spending data, collected during the event, to measure the economic impact of non-sport events such as festivals, exhibitions and fairs. The model, which contains 100% Canadian data and directly reflects what took place at the specific event in a specific Canadian community, is continuously upgraded to ensure the economic contribution assessments are robust and reliable. STC partners with the Canadian Tourism Research Institute (CTRI) at The Conference Board of Canada. The CTRI serves the travel and tourism industry in providing sound economic forecasts and models with timely and insightful interpretation of data specifically relevant to travel. The latest Statistics Canada input/output tables and multipliers are also regularly updated to keep the model current. FESTPRO and STEAMPRO are considered the ‘gold standard’ in the field of economic impact assessment, providing real data in real time. 

About Sport Tourism Canada (STC) 

Sport Tourism Canada is a non-governmental, member-based, capacity-building organization that promotes sport tourism as a grassroots economic development initiative at the community level. STC services over 500 members across Canada, including 130 municipalities, 300 national and provincial sport, multi-sport and major games organizations and a variety of other sport and tourism industry partners. Sport tourism is the fastest growing segment of the tourism industry in Canada with over $6.8 billion in annual spending by domestic and international visitors and is central to local and regional economic recovery from COVID-19. 

Media Inquiries 

Natalie Wakabayashi

Tourism London

T: 226-926-0134 Email: nwakabayashi@Londontourism.ca

Derek Mager, Economic Impact Consultant   

Sport Tourism Canada   

T: 604-787-3605     E: Derek@thedatajungle.com