Spectator profiles and economic impact of the 2009 US Women's Open

Abstract

Abstract Economic impact studies are a common form of evaluating sporting events, but there exists considerable disagreement about their approaches and accuracy. Recently, the consumer behaviors of spectator market segments (i.e., Casuals, Runaways, Homestayers, and others) have been shown to significantly influence the net impacts of an event on the host economy. The purpose of this study is to apply the ex post bottom‐up model, ACE: Assessing Consumers of Events , to the 2009 US Women's Open golf championship to estimate the event's economic impact as well as to illustrate the model's data requirements and methodology. In 2008, the ex ante ACE model predicted $7.5 million in spending in the host economy with a slight crowding‐out effect. The ex post ACE model study estimated that 2009 US Women's Open spectators in fact spent $7.6 million. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.