#360Business: Biggest RWC in history

Martyn Thomas 07:36 19/01/2015
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  • The Rugby World Cup will start on 18th September and the final will be held in Twickenham.

    The countdown for the 2015 Rugby World Cup is well and truly under way. In less than eight months’ time, England will stride out at a sold-out Twickenham to face Fiji and kick off what is already the most anticipated tournament in the quadrennial event’s history.

    There is still plenty of rugby to be played between now and September 18, of course, but while that means we are way off knowing the exact make-up of the hosts’ midfield, it hasn’t stopped the organisers claiming an early victory.

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    England Rugby 2015 (ER 2015) ushered in the New Year not only with countdown events in host cities, Cardiff and Newcastle, but also by declaring this autumn’s tournament would provide a £982 million (Dh5.5 billion) boost to Britain’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    That was the stand-out figure from a study of the economic impact of hosting the World Cup, that found it would produce a total output to the economy of £2.2bn (Dh12.3bn) on the back of record interest for tickets from outside of the host nation.

    It is expected that around 466,000 fans from beyond England and Wales will attend in September and October, more than three times the amount who travelled to New Zealand in 2011.

    “There’s a general want to be a part of it from international fans as much as local fans,” ER 2015 chief executive Debbie Jevans says.

    “I think rugby as a sport is one that has its values of integrity, teamwork, respect, all of those things come through and people want to be a part of it.

    “If you look at what it is, it’s the biggest event that there is this year. You’ve got the 20 best teams in the world, it’s going to be some fantastic sport so why wouldn’t you want to be a part of it?

    “The fact that we’ve had over five million applications is wonderful.”

    Jevans was brought on board by the organising committee in the autumn of 2012 having played a pivotal role in delivering the London Olympic Games earlier that year.

    At the time Andy Cosslett, the organising committee’s chairman, tasked her with taking the event to the “next level”, while Jevans her self talks of making 2015 the year of the Rugby World Cup.

    Debbie Jevans, CEO of England Rugby 2015, talks during the iRB World Rugby Conference and Exhibition.

    “I think if you look back to two years ago when I got this job and the progress that has been made by the team, it’s genuinely fantastic,” Jevans adds.

    “Our ambition is to make [England in] 2015 seem like a rugby nat-ion and we need to work to ensure that that is the case. But if you look at the response we’ve had to ticket sales, I think the public has very much responded to the hosting of the World Cup so I’m confident we’ll achieve that.”

    The figures revealed in the study carried out by Ernst & Young – the official business partner of the event – would certainly suggest they are well on their way.

    But is it possible to take the findings at face value?

    Simon Kuper, author of Soccernomics, has studied the economic impact of football World Cups as well as Olympics, and believes any projections need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

    “I would say that any study hercommissioned by the organisers is suspect,” Kuper says.

    “Because although I’m sure Ernst & Young are extremely professional, there is a conflict of interest there.

    Author Simon Kuper.

    “Normally impact from sports tournaments, as I say in Soccernomics, are very low, are negligible or negative, because you can say there are going to be all these tourists coming.

    “Yeah, but there will also be people who won’t come because they don’t want to go, say to Cardiff, during the Rugby World Cup. The normal tourists will come at another time.

    “Another thing is that a lot of the people who will be at the World Cup will be Brits, or Aussies and New Zealanders and South Africans who live in Britain, of whom there are many.

    “And if they weren’t going to a Rugby World Cup match they would be spending their money doing something else in Britain.”

    Indeed, while ER 2015 are rightly confident of huge numbers of international visitors this autumn, by their own admission 63 per cent of those will come from the rest of Britain and Europe.

    That means to produce the predicted £869m (Dh4.8bn) generated by these tourists, the 37 per cent arriving from Australasia, Africa and other parts of the globe will have to spend between £173 (Dh964) and £202 (Dh1,126) every day.

    When you key in the fact that the three million people who holidayed in the UK last October spent a combined £1.76bn (Dh9.8bn) according to official statistics – or £587 per head per whole visit – it is understandable that some are sceptical.

    “The notion that every tourist is a big spender is extremely dubious,” Kuper adds.

    “Because England and Wales are quite small, if for example, you are going to a game in Cardiff but you have relatives in Leicester, you can make it back so you end up not spending the hotel night.

    “So, the vision of New Zealanders roaming around staying in an expensive hotel every night for a month I think is very dubious.”

    Billy Vunipola of England with his team-mates during the Autumn International match between England and South Africa at Twickenham.

    Where the 2015 RWC differs to other recent global sporting events is in the relatively low outlay on infrastructure. Using multi-purpose stadia has allowed ER 2015 to restrict these costs to £85m (Dh474m), £76m of which went on renovating Twickenham.

    By contrast, the organisers of the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa spent $600m (Dh2.2bn) on the Cape Town Stadium alone, which has since become a considerable white elephant.

    Newcastle is one city looking to capitalise on that frugality, as well as the undoubted thirst for the tournament, as they did when they hosted football matches at the 2012 Olympics.

    St James’ Park hosts three pool matches in October, featuring Scotland, South Africa and New Zealand and there have been efforts to improve trade links with the city’s antipodean guests.

    Indeed Jonathan Walker, Head of Member Relations at the North East Chamber of Commerce, while cautious about Newcastle’s projected £93m (Dh518.8m) income, believes the tournament does offer the city a chance to advertise itself to a global audience.

    “When you look at the games that we’ve got here it’s a great opportunity to get a large group of people who wouldn’t necessarily have considered visiting Newcastle,” he explains.

    “We’re working closely with a number of partners in the city to ensure that kind of benefit is magnified wherever possible.”

    Walker adds: “I think it would be very churlish and very short sighted to say that [you’re going to] bring potentially 50,000 people into the city and think that they’re not going to spend money.

    “It is very hard to measure, but I think there is likely to be a very strong impact, and a great deal of benefits that can’t be measured in terms of reputation and promoting the city.”

    For many of the 11 host cities, the lure of future tourism is clearly what has attracted them to be part of the biggest Rugby World Cup yet.

    And with 37 of the 48 matches already sold out, the rest of the globe are sure to be watching.

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