The Economic Impact of Cultural Events: Girona's Flower Festival “Girona Temps De Flors”

Cultural events have taken on a growing role in territorial and tourist marketing of cities and destinations. In addition to its role in stimulating creativity, showing the cultural heritage to the visitors or even being a learning tool, a cultural event can serve as a stimulus for local economic activity because as an attraction draws visitors who spend in a community. 

At the same time, economic impact analysis is a frequently discussed topic in academic papers and journals to assess the relevance of the culture in the local economies. In many cases the positive economic effects described in these publications are used to justify a further development of tourism and cultural events.

The data presented here demonstrates the direct economic impact of the culture activities, such as organization expenditures and the wider economic benefits for the local tourism stakeholders. This thesis takes a deep approach and estimates the economic effects of one specific event; Girona Temps de Flors, by obtaining the data throughout a questionnaire used to assess the spending behavior of the visitors and its consumer profile during two editions; 2012 and 2013.

The economic impact model used was the input-output one, using the methodology provided by impact studies in two stages: first, through estimating private spending generated by the event’s cultural tourism; and second, by calculating the overall economic impact. Not only the common methodology was used, but also some innovations have been introduced as for example the way how the mobile population was calculated, making comparisons in between two different editions and evaluating the economic sustainability of the event.