Distinguishing Event Spectator Spending Profiles: Projected Impacts of the 2009 U.S. Open Golf Championship

Spectators at mega-sport events are an aggregation of market segments with distinct consumer behaviours. Relatively few economic impact studies have distinguished spectator market segments or the event tourists crowding out other visitors, resulting in inaccurate results. Despite a plethora of prior studies, there remains a need for a refined and agile model to predict a sporting event’s economic impact. The purpose of this study is to describe the ex ante model, ACE: Assessing Consumers of Events, developed to estimate spending impacts by spectators. ACE is then applied to the 2009 U.S. Women’s Open Golf Championship to illustrate its data requirements and results. U.S. Open spectators are projected to spend $7.5 million in the host economy and induce a slight crowding out effect. Future applications of the ACE model are discussed.