The Economic Significance of Events Held by Olympiaworld Innsbruck and Congress und Messe Innsbruck

The economic significance of events for the host location, surrounding regions, and Austria as a whole cannot be fully captured by visitor numbers or ticket revenues alone. Both attendees and active participants (e.g. athletes, artists, exhibitors) travel to the events and consume services such as accommodation, food, and leisure activities during their stay. Moreover, organising events requires a wide range of services (e.g. stand construction and dismantling, venue operations), and the necessary infrastructure must be maintained and operated. To quantify these direct expenditures as well as the resulting indirect economic effects – collectively referred to as the "economic ripple effects" of events – multi-sectoral and multi-regional simulation models are needed. For this purpose, WIFO has developed the ASCANIO model. In 2019, WIFO used this model for the first time to estimate the regional economic impacts of events held by Olympiaworld and Congress und Messe Innsbruck. The proposed project builds on that study and focuses on events hosted by these two institutions in the 2024-25 season. The methodological framework will largely remain unchanged to ensure comparability with the previous results.