3.1. Direct Economic Impact
The following profiles of Medsailing’19 participants were obtained from the survey (
Table 1). The average age of the assistants and the participants was approximately 21 years. The age group between 15 and 19 is where we find most respondents (men, 69%; women, 31%). This shows us that inequality exists between the sexes since the percentage of male respondents surpasses 50%.
Concerning the respondents’ origin, we see that those who reside in Spain represent 44% and more than 50% of the respondents came from other countries (mainly from Europe). We can better concretise the origin of these percentages: we observe that those of international origin came from Germany (25%), Italy (16%) and Holland (12%). The remaining percentage is divided amongst United Kingdom Belgium, Denmark, France, Hungary, Russia and Switzerland. If we concretise in reference to those visitors who came from Catalonia, these mostly were from the Canary Islands (60%), Balearic Islands (20%), Valencia and Cantabria. Regarding the participants and assistants from Catalonia, 41% came from Barcelona, 14% from Tarragona and the remaining from Berga, Blanes, Maresme, Girona, L’Estartit, Rubí, Reus, Palamós, Sitges, and Port de la Selva.
With respect to socioeconomic data, we asked about the level of studies. We see that most of them are situated in secondary studies (57%), which is because the vast majority of the participants and assistants are in the 15 to 19 age range, 31% of these were studying or already had university studies, and 12% already had compulsory studies.
Another data point extracted from the survey was the labour situation, which we categorised as follows: students, unemployed, employed and retired. The observed results were consistent with the results obtained for the age and level of studies since they were young people shows us that 80% were students, with 20% remaining in the employed categorisation.
With regard to the frequency of assistants or participants in this type of competition in the territory, the results of this question show us that the large majority of them have already assisted more than once with this club for some competition but sporadically, that is to say, they practically assist in this competition. These represent 46% of the total. Otherwise, 39% were first-timers with the club in 2019. In this competition, 13% assisted on a weekly basis since it was their usual place for training or competition, with another 2% assisting monthly or quarterly.
In reference to the question related to the respondents’ main motivation, it was for competition; a large majority of them were participants (84%), while 15% were accompanying a participant (these could be family or trainers). Only 1% came to the competition as fans and then assisted with the event. The results do not show any respondent that came for reasons not tied to the competition.
After knowing the respondents’ main motivation, the survey analysed what type of companions attended the event. The results show that 81% were accompanied by the team, 16% with family, and 3% with friends. These results show that in this type of competition, most of the participants come accompanied by the team of the club from which they come. We also analysed the behaviour of the assistants and participants related to their habits of accommodation. First, we differentiate those who were single-day visitors since they slept in their residence and travelled to the competition each day (these represented 38%). Next, 30% slept in the place where the competition was celebrated, Sant Andreu of Llavaneres, while 29% lodged inside Maresme and 3% out of the Maresme.
Attending the behavioural results in more depth, the average number of nights lodged was 5.40 nights, except single-day visitors. On the other hand, regarding the type of accommodation chosen by the users, the main type was the apartment (60%), followed by the hotel* (12%) and then a pension or hostel (11%). This analysis accommodation typology is tied to the type of diet chosen. As many users were lodged in tourist apartments, those choosing pensions used their own accommodations (70%), while others used their accommodations only to sleep (17%).
We analyse the level of expense produced by the users’ assistants and participants to the competition in the province where the competition was held (see
Table 2). We differentiate the expenses in accommodation between foods and drinks, shopping, culture and sport.
The average expense in total accommodation was EUR 248.38, with an average of 5.40 nights, removing from the analysis all those that did not realise an accommodation expense due to being single-day visitors. The mean daily expense of the users during the days of the competition was EUR 22.65 per person. The mean daily mean in shopping per person was EUR 4.87. The mean daily expense in culture per person of the users was EUR 1.54. The mean daily expense in shopping per person of the users was EUR 6.59.
We also analyse the consumer surplus of assistants/participants of MedSailing’19. In the survey, we asked four questions referring to whether they would pay more than EUR 100, more than EUR 200, more than EUR 300 or more than EUR 500. We want to know how many euros the participants or attendees would be willing to overpay. In the first question in which it proposes that the participant or attendee pay EUR 100 more than the price already paid to come to the event, more than half of them (54%) would have paid it, 32% would not be willing, and 14% did not know if they would pay it. The remaining percentage represents those who answered, “does not answer”.
For the three following questions (where the willingness to pay increases up to EUR 500), the availability to pay reduces until finally, only 5% would have paid EUR 500 more to assist or participate. We can observe the evolution of this availability as the price increases, shown in
Table 3.
Therefore, analysing
Table 3, we can see that 54% would pay EUR 100 more, 19% would pay EUR 200 more, 8% would pay EUR 300 more, and 5% would pay EUR 500 more.
Table 4 indicates the availability to pay of each person on average.
To explore further, we multiply the total by the number of people who have affirmed that they would pay more (138) and divide it by the number of people to which completed the survey (164). The result obtained shows that users would have paid EUR 76.57 more to assist with the competition.
3.2. IO Analysis
For the IO analysis, we used the input–output tables that collected the flow of transactions between economic sectors in a determinate region or country by year.
To start the analysis, it is necessary to collect the data. In this case, the methodology used was the survey given to the competition’s assistants and participants. With this information, it is possible to detect the variations in the economic activity of the productive sectors as a function of the variations in demand. For this analysis, we used the IDESCAT input–output tables from 2011 for 10 sectors.
Table 5,
Table 6 and
Table 7 show the impact of the exploitation expenses and the visitors on total production. Each table shows the calculation of the direct, indirect and total impacts.
The operating expenses produced by MedSailing’19 have reached EUR 37,572. As we can observe in
Table 5, the direct impact supposed a total of EUR 26.65, whereas the indirect impact supposed EUR 10,916. If we allocate these expenses to the different sectors shown in the input–output tables, we see that the sectors benefiting the most were: professional activities (38%); trade, transport and hospitality (21.7%); and real estate activities (13.9%).
Regarding the visitors’ expenses, companions and participants of MedSailing’19 have spent a total of EUR 200,416, of which 133,090 have been of direct form and 67,326 of indirect form. This expense is imputed only in two of the input–output tables’ sectors, in sector four (the trade, transport and hospitality industry (47.9%)), and in the remaining sectors (artistic activities, entertainment and others), reflected in
Table 6.
The last calculation of the economic impact shows the total impact on the company’s production and the assistants/participants. As shown in
Table 7, the direct impact was EUR 159,746, and the indirect impact was EUR 78,243, with a total impact on the production of EUR 232,010.
The sectors with more weight on the total impact were trade, transport and hospitality (representing 67.65% of the total), and the professional activities and others sector (representing 13.67%).
In addition, it is worth pointing out that of the total impact, 83.6% was produced by assistants/participants.
To finalise the event’s economic impact, we calculate the multiplier with a simple formula that allows us to know how much money has been generated by the event for each euro that has been invested in it. Each euro that was invested in the sporting event recovered EUR 1.45. Considering the impact created, the total impact on the production would increase to EUR 332,547; therefore, if we reformulate the multiplier formula, we will obtain a multiplier of EUR 2.08 for every euro invested. In the research, the induced effect was not considered.
3.5. Benefits
Income can also be classified and defined according to origin: no local expenses, the organisers’ income, consumer surplus, the value of the tourist image, and direct health income. The no local expenses represent the income produced by those assistants with the main aim of visiting to assist or participate in the MedSailing’19 event. These expenses do not include registration expenses, as they will be taken into account later.
The expenses related to doing things without local assistance rises to EUR 22,602.58. This cost represents an expense for society. The expense from having no residents registering the competitors rises to EUR 21,170. When we talk about consumer surplus, we will identify the amount attendees would be willing to overpay for the competition. The result was that the assistants or participants had to pay EUR 76.57 per person. In total, this income would represent a quantity of EUR 12,940.33.
Other income to be valued is related to or obtained from advertising in communication channels or social networks. We want to value the income that helped to improve the tourist market for the population. Many authors have explored the value of a mediatic impact [
46,
47,
48]. Those cases used the equivalent publicity value as the way to determine the economic value. This methodology focuses on the impacts generated by the event and its equivalent publicity cost. The event has three publications in digital media and one report on local television:
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Two publications in the digital newspaper ABC. These publications were one page for each. Following the publicity prices for this type of media, the equivalent publicity value is EUR 32 (EUR 16 × 2);
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One publication in the digital sports newspaper Sport, where the equivalent publicity value is EUR 21;
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One report on local television. In this case, the prices of publicity are not the same for all days. This report appeared on Thursday, 21 February at 14:27 p.m. At this hour, the equivalent publicity value was between EUR 3600 and EUR 5800. We will take EUR 6500 as an estimated value.
Nevertheless, we have to consider that the impact of MedSailing’19 has also produced some publicity on Twitter, one of the main social media platforms. Social media publications can provide value in many forms [
36,
37,
49] and the value of its activity depends of several factors [
35,
50]. Authors such as Norte [
51] and Afnan et al. [
52] propose some models related to commercial actions and pricing social movements.
Before, during and after the event, 98 publications on Twitter talked about Medsailing’19 from 1 January to 21 February 2019. Taking the worst scenario and counting the number of posts done, the minimum price established by a publication on a social media platform is EUR 0.50. Thus, the equivalent value could be EUR 49.
To calculate an accurate value of social media posts, more information is needed, such as the interactions of every publication, the posts made by users referring to an event and who interacts with them. Likewise, there are no consolidated methodologies to calculate it. In the case of social media, the publicity equivalent value is a variable that could change according to many factors. That is why, in this case, we have not included the value of social media activity in mediatic value calculation and assume that its value is EUR 6552.
Table 8 gives a summary of the incomes.
The lack of sedentarism produces an improvement in individuals’ health. This improvement can translate in economic terms from the point of view of cost savings that this produces for society and organisations, such as social security. To identify the cost savings that are produced both directly and indirectly by these individuals who practice sports, previous studies have been used that have already analysed these costs.
Janssen et al. [
53] conducted an investigation of sedentarism in Ontario and Scarborough from the perspective of obesity in the United Kingdom. According to these two authors, the most important diseases that lead to a sedentary lifestyle and obesity are an ischaemic disease of the heart, ischaemic and cerebrovascular diseases, breast cancer, cancer of the rectum/colon, hypertension and type II diabetes.
In the current study, the costs extracted in Gutiérrez’s [
54] research will be used in reference to the social costs associated with sedentary life in the Canary Islands. We do not believe that obesity can be directly related to nautical sports. Gutiérrez’s [
54] research, from which all the cost data will be extracted, distinguishes direct and indirect costs. Within the direct differences between hospitalisation, primary attention and specialisations and drugs.
These direct costs rise to a total of EUR 155,035,997.76 (
Table 9). However, we must also consider the indirect costs, which come from the loss of labour productivity due to absenteeism at work, EUR 142,277,781.39 (
Table 10).
In total, the sum of the direct and indirect costs rises to EUR 302,313,779.15, of which 52% of the costs correspond to the direct costs of hospitalisation, primary care attention and drugs.
However, for this investigation, we have to extrapolate these expenses for the representative population. For this, we calculate the percentage based on the population of Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, the location where the event takes place. The population in 2018 of Sant Andreu de Llavaneres was 10,877 inhabitants.
We divide the total costs with Spain’s population to determine the cost per inhabitant, resulting in EUR 6.27/inhabitant. We multiply the result by the population of inhabitants, and the result is EUR 70,382.43. Therefore, the total health income is EUR 70,382.43.