Le Tour Yorkshire: How the Grand Depart weekend brought in £102m to Yorkshire
THE Grand Départ was worth an initial £102m to the Yorkshire region after attracting 3.3m spectators to the region last July.
An independent report published today called Three Inspirational Days has produced the first robust estimate of the economic impact of the Tour de France holding its first three stages of the 2014 race in the UK.
The first two stages were Leeds-Harrogate and York-Sheffield, before the peloton moved south and raced from Cambridge to London.
But it was Le Tour Yorkshire that provided the vision, captured the imagination and has reaped the rewards for its ambition.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme described it as “the grandest Grand Départ” in the 111-year history of the race and now the event organisers have the statistical evidence to go alongside the memories and anecdotes as they seek to prove the value and legacy of that July weekend.
Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire Gary Verity said: “We’re absolutely delighted the event brought so much money to the county to help businesses big and small, and there are benefits for the county which are impossible to measure – the profile of Yorkshire around the world has never been higher and this will have a lasting impact on visitor numbers and businesses for years and years to come.”
The race itself was a tourism success, attracting 2.3m people of whom about 1m watched both days. The study estimated that 1m spectators were from outside Yorkshire and about 70,000 from outside the UK, while one-in-four people in the Yorkshire and Humber region watched the race in person.
Although the statistics can be stretched to the point where they become meaningless – 44% of visitors from outside Yorkshire had visited the region again in the three months after the Grand Départ, although this will include people from places just over the county border like Oldham, Middlesbrough and Nottingham – the weight of evidence becomes overwhelming to all-but the most stubborn of critics.
The report identifies that while businesses had a mixed experience of the Tour, with the scale of the disruption negatively affecting many companies across the region, there was still a strong feeling that it was good for Yorkshire and the majority would support attracting other major events in the future.
The Yorkshire Festival, a 100-day collection of 2,225 performances watched by 816,000 people, is credited with generating £7.5m, and the entourage of the teams, media and volunteers was estimated to have spent £1.8m in Yorkshire alone.
In addition the impact and investment generated by the International Festival of Business and the spending of locals in attending the event (estimated at £27.8m in Yorkshire) have not been included in the overall estimate.
More significantly, the figure of £102m is an estimate to date, not a forecast, as it only counts directly-attributable revenue that has been identified. Future benefits, which will come principally from tourism and business, have not yet been given a value by researchers and so the total economic impact will almost certainly climb higher in the following months and years.
The report’s authors acknowledge this, saying “while these figures are positive, it should be recognised they are, arguably, conservative estimates undertaken at a particular point in time”.
But the success of the Grand Départ was never just about the money spent in Yorkshire over that weekend and four other key goals – in addition to holding a safe and enjoyable event – were identified from the outset.
They were to raise the profile of the host regions, attract tourism and investment, cement the UK’s position as a world leader in delivering major events and to inspire many thousands of people to cycle, whether for the first time or to increase their frequency.
The study is bullish about the successful delivery of each of these, backed by a barrage of statistics. They include the extrapolated figure of 800,000 people who said they would strongly recommend the region to their family and friends, the 2,000 participants from the business festival, the 52% of people inspired to cycle more frequently, and the continued success of the UK in attracting major events, including several high-profile cycling championships, in the years ahead.
