Probably, The 2015 Open Championship in St Andrews was the best-performing golf event in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It delivered £140 million of economic benefit to Scotland. Just from visitors to Scotland for the tournament generated £88 million – nearly double the £47.5 million in visitor impact achieved in 2010 when the event was last held at the Old Course.
Kantar Media Sport Intelligence found that half a million households worldwide saw the 2015 Open Championship. This generated £52 million in marketing benefit. Sheffield Hallam University’s Sport Industry Research Center, estimates that Fife alone benefited to the tune of around £52 million.
Other key findings:
- Total spectator admissions: 237,024, with 93,000 unique spectators.
- 28% of the total, compared to 20% in 2010 were overseas spectators: 26,400
- 75% of the overseas spectators were attending the Open for the first time in 2015 (a sign of effective media planning and marketing strategy). This is a significant increase versus previous events held at St Andrews in 2010 and 2005 were 65% and 62% respectively.
- 80% of the UK visitors said that they will return to Scotland within a year (see customer experience).
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