For the second year in a row, professors Álvaro Fernández Luna and Pablo Burillo at the Universidad Europea and Real Madrid Graduate School – Universidad Europea respectively, have led a study analyzing the social and economic impact of the Mutua Madrid Open tennis tournament in the Spanish capital. On this occasion, they’ve analysed all the details from the 2017 tournament, attended by 260,000 people (a 6% year on year increase ) has concluded that it has impacted the city by generating €107 million, of which 87 were directly generated by the tournament.
In order to be able to create this study, the project leads relied on the participation of a team of over 60 students and professors from the university, who specialise in economy and sports management.
The research team have analysed the data from 1,617 event attendees, and conducted over 738 polls during the event to determine things like the average spend by spectator and the tax contribution from each of them. Furthermore, they have used some data from official entities such as the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) and Madrid’s council.
The study, a result of an agreement reached in 2016 between Universidad Europea and the tournament organisation, has concluded that Mutua Madrid Open tournament is a powerful international promotional tool for the city of Madrid, as it attracts tourism. As a matter of fact, from the 22% of foreign attendees, 91% would visit the city again and 92% would recommend Madrid as a great tourist destination. When it comes to the average spend per attendee, the amount is about 394 euros per national spectator – almost 96 euros more than in 2016 - and 1,146 euros per international spectator – almost 198 euros more than in 2016. The typical event attendee profile is a person of about 37 years old, of which 33% have an average monthly income between 2,500 and 4,999 euros.
For the public purse, this event has translated into 9.56 million euros in direct taxes, and 10.15 million in indirect taxes (a total 2.26 million more than in 2016).