With under a month to go until the 2015 Rugby World Cup commences, GoEuro.com, the search engine for comparing flights, coach and rail travel options across Europe, has worked out that the World Cup will generate nearly £1bn for the transport and tourism industry.
As the UK prepares to host 20 teams, over 440,000 international visitors and more than 2,200,000 Brits in 11 cities, the impact on the local economies will be huge and, based on GoEuro’s research, it will be the biggest generator of tourism since the 2012 London Olympics.
London will be the biggest winner over all, with 17 matches earning the city £197,026,000. Furthermore, transportation bosses will be happy with £15,420,000 extra income as spectators descend on the capital.
The 11 host cities will generate between £3,524,934.50 and £197,024,316.33 in terms of money spent on inner-city transport, accommodation, food & beverages, according to the number of expected visiting spectators and the number of games being hosted. For the tourism industry as a whole, the cup is expected to generate a whopping £957,429,314.07.
The research focused on transport, accommodation and miscellaneous costs and did not take the cost of tickets into account. The methodology behind it involved making an average of tourist expenditure by nationality of visitors (Visit Britain and UNWTO statistics) along with GoEuro’s Price Indexes.
