The UK School Games hosted by the University of Bath last summer helped to inject £2.4 million into the local economy, a report released today has found.
The third UK School Games was staged in four venues across Bath and Bristol over five days at the end of August. It was opened by double gold medallist Rebecca Adlington OBE who had just returned from her triumph at the Olympic Games in Beijing.
More than 1,600 talented young people competed at the event which included an opening ceremony, three days of competition and a four-night stay at the athletes’ village based at the University’s Sports Training Village (STV).
The games attracted more than 11,000 spectators and was supported by Bath & North East Somerset Council. It included nine sports with the University’s STV playing host to athletics, fencing, table tennis and volleyball competitions.
Several young athletes gave tremendous performances such as rising javelin star Izzy Jess who claimed gold with the second longest British under-17 distance ever recorded and Tsubasa Nakagawa who won gold in the 50m freestyle swim.
The survey was carried out by ESP Solution Ltd and was commissioned by Fast Track Events Ltd who organised the UK School Games.
The analysis included a face-to-face survey of attendees to the event including competitors, spectators and officials.
Ron Humphreys, Head of Corporate Relations at the University, said: “In addition to the economic uplift, the report shows that the television and media publicity was worth around £780,000. It has helped promote a positive image of Bath and Bristol as host cities.”
What the survey said:
- 31 per cent of the £2.4 million was generated by families of competitors with an average daily expenditure of £86.24 per family and £133.68 of families who stayed overnight.
- 76 per cent of all the spectators at the event were visitors from outside Bath and Bristol and the majority who took part in the survey said the games were the main reason they came to the area.
- The average number of days spent in Bath or Bristol was 3.31 and the average number of nights for overnight visitors was 2.9.
- 47 per cent of visitors had not been to either Bath or Bristol before and 64.6 per cent thought that they would return again soon.
- 96.7 per cent of those questioned rated the cities as ‘very good’ or ‘good’ as a host city for sports events and 93.7 per cent ’strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ that more major sports events should be attracted to Bath and Bristol.