This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Golf Open worth more than £72 million to Scotland
24/01/2006
Golf's oldest and most prestigious tournament, The Open Championship, was worth more than £72 million to Scotland last year, according to a comprehensive economic study.
The equivalent of £1 million for each Championship hole played.
The 2005 Open was at St Andrews in Fife, the home of golf, and it will be played at Carnoustie, Angus, in 2007 and Turnberry, Ayrshire, in 2009.
The Open's value is calculated through £40 million worth of worldwide television exposure for the host country, and £32.3 million of new money for the Scottish economy from spending by spectators, the media, players, and the tournament organisers, The R&A.
The study was commissioned and jointly funded by The R&A and Scottish Enterprise. It was carried out by Comperio Research, the research arm of leading marketing and media group, IMG.
Tourism, Culture and Sport Minister Patricia Ferguson said:
"These impressive figures demonstrate that The Open, and golf in general, are an important economic driver for the Scottish economy.
"Golf tourism provides enormous potential for growth and Scotland, boasting some of the world's finest courses, is well placed to exploit the global interest in golf."
R&A Director of Championships David Hill said:
"We take The Open Championship to a different venue in the UK each year and these findings will help public bodies and local businesses prepare for the scale of the event arriving on their doorstep.
"Scotland, the home of golf, historically benefits from staging the Open three times in five years".
In 2005 the St Andrews Open attracted 223,000 spectators of whom more than half (57.2 per cent) were Scottish residents, and almost one third (31.2 per cent) came from elsewhere in the UK.
More than one in 10 (11.5 per cent) came from overseas with the majority (44 per cent) from the US, and others from Australia, Canada and Ireland.
Last year four Executive agencies - Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Development International, EventScotland, and VisitScotland - committed a total of £600,000 over three years to The Open Championship to promote Scotland as the Home of Golf.
At a local level last year's Open Championship is calculated to have injected a total of £23.1m of new money into the Fife economy.
The appropriate measure of new money is £32.3 million (net total economic impact) for the Scottish economy derived from hosting The Open Championship at St Andrews.
Substitution and time switching discounts have been fully applied removing from the calculation all Open Championship spending by residents of the study catchment area and by visitors who would have spent money locally, during the week of The Open, regardless of the event being staged. Gross total economic impact of The Open Championship in 2005, frequently used as a benchmark for overall event scale is calculated at £90m.
Forty seven broadcasters covering 194 territories worldwide broadcast coverage of The Open Championship in 2005. Scenic, graphic and verbal editorial promotion for Scotland was monitored and given a programme specific advertising equivalent value totalling £40m.
The R&A is golf's world rules and development body and organiser of The Open Championship. It operates with the consent of more than 125 national and international, amateur and professional organisations, from over 110 countries and on behalf of an estimated 28 million golfers in Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific and The Americas (outside the USA and Mexico). The United States Golf Association (USGA) is the game's governing body in the United States and Mexico.
Scottish Enterprise is the main economic development agency for Scotland covering 93 per cent of the population from Grampian to the Borders. The Scottish Enterprise Network consists of Scottish Enterprise and 12 Local Enterprise Companies. Working in partnership with the private and public sectors the Network aims to build more and better businesses, to develop the skills and knowledge of Scottish people, and to encourage innovation to make Scottish business internationally competitive.
Comperio Research is the research arm of the leading marketing and media group, IMG. It operates in an international network of over 70 offices in 30 countries and works for more than 200 international brands, federations and rights holders on sponsorship, consumer and broadcast, leisure, stadia, economic impact assessments and lifestyle research.