About Hitwise
Hitwise is the leader in online competitive intelligence. Contact Hitwise to maximize your online marketing programs.
Hitwise Intelligence - Alan Long - Asia Pacific
Analyst Weblog
« Ronaldinho & The Group of Death | Climate Change defeats a Prime Minister »
Is the World Cup of Tourism value?
June 23, 2010
How do we judge the value of large international sporting events such as the World Cup Soccer to the host nation?
- Infrastructure investment
- Employment gains
- Increased tourism – immediate and ongoing
- Ongoing awareness
It’s obviously all of these things and many more that go into making a decision and commitment to aggressively bid for an event of the magnitude of the Olympic Games or World Cup. The bid committees no doubt have a number of various formulae that support their decision and gain government support for a bid.
Using search terms as an indicator, I have categorised the top 1,000 search terms that include ‘south africa’ into four portfolios and tracked the comparative growth of each search portfolio.
General enquiries about South Africa. i.e. non World Cup specific, have been on a steady incline since the beginning of the year and in the week ending 19 June increased 121.0% over the week prior to the start of the World Cup (week ending 29 May 2010).
World Cup specific ‘south africa’ searches as expected rose sharply as the event finally got onto the pitch, with search volumes increasing 14-fold (+1,300%) in week ending 12 June 2010, then receding in week ending 19 June 2010 to be 355% higher than in week ending 29 May 2010..
Other sports including cricket and rugby experienced a doubling of search volumes (+100.0%) in the past week, but off a much lower base, the previous weeks peak (week ending 12 June 2010)is reflective of the current South Africa vs. West Indies cricket series currently taking place in the Caribbean.
Tourism related searches for South Africa rose 133.3% in week ending 19 June compared to week ending 29 May 2010, The chart highlights the gradual build of tourism related searches from early March and then a steeper growth from the start of May.
Leading search terms within the Tourism portfolio are:
So things are looking good for South Africa’s tourism efforts; later in the year we’ll be able to judge whether they have been able to retain some ongoing benefit post the World Cup.
Locally Australia’s Football Federation announced recently that it has decided to withdraw from the bid for the 2018 World Cup and focus their energies solely on winning the host nation rights for the 2022 World Cup. A specially developed website has been built to harness support and share information and news about the bid. Come Play (www.australia2018-2022.com.au) was launched in June 2009 and after the immediate hype settled down while drawn out negotiations and consultation over ground rights with the NRL and AFL played out, sometimes very publicly.
As the World Cup drew closer the site experienced strong growth, but not back to the highs of the original launch in June 2009.
Search volumes though do provide another perspective into the psyche of the Australian Internet user, and with the chart below highlights the search volume has climbed back to the levels of the launch of the bid.
Though not reflected in share of visits growth to the official bid website, the search volumes have grown over 6 times (511.1%) in week ending 19 June 2010 compared to the week prior to the start of the World Cup, week ending 29 May 2010.
A goal or two on the pitch may further support Australia’s bid to bag the World Cup in 2022, because after the debacle against Germany last week and the draw with Ghana, it’s unlikely to come downunder in 2010.
We’ll continue to update information around online behaviour relating to the World Cup in South Africa over the coming weeks, to keep up to date connect with us via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.
Tweet
Posted by Alan Long at 02:43 PM
| 
(0)
In Categories Sport | Tourism | World Cup 2010
