The growing role of events as a strategic lever for tourism and economic growth

Event tourism has gone through a paradigm shift in the last 30 years, evolving from being a calendar-driven activity that is used to bring people to an event to a tool for destination marketing, economic development and urban development. With the market landscape changing over the years, the very success of events has come to rely more and more on experience design, technology, data-driven decision making and engagement throughout the year instead of attendance at the event. 

What winners do differently? 

The largest events don't always deliver the greatest value for destinations. The difference between the winners is the way they plan the system around the event rather than the event itself. Winners create a series of events throughout the year, including mega, signature, mid-tier and community events, all bound together to create destination value. The tiers are interconnected, with each one feeding into the next. Leaders monitor audience quality, repeat visits, audience value in the media, audience sentiment and brand value over time. The strategy is determined by the metric. Events are centered on a person, namely the traveller, and not around what they want to see. The brief is grounded in the concepts of belonging, values alignment and community. 

The structural drivers 

Event tourism is being reshaped by three key structural drivers: 

1.  AI & data as the new event infrastructure: Data and AI are moving from enabler to the operating system of event tourism strategy. 
2. Expectations accelerate for the travelers beyond just event identities: This isn't some new fad for millennials. It will become the norm in the future for all age groups and all levels of the events continuum. Values alignment, sustainability, community, authenticity, not being a preference but a purchase criteria. 
3. Investment focusing on the clear portfolio: Private and institutional investors are increasingly focused on destinations and operators that have a clear investment portfolio, known and recognized returns and data-enhancing evidence of demand. 

The spectrum opportunity 

The places that are thriving with event tourism aren't only attracting larger events. They are doing planned and purposeful work throughout the event continuum, from community activation to mega event anchors. Mega-event budget is not the only domain to experience the opportunity of event tourism. It can be found at all scales, as long as the approach is well thought out. 

The value horizon 

Value is created in three parallel layers of events. 

1. The commercial layer – most visible, most competed and most commoditised layer. Money received directly at the event.  
2. The tourism layer: This is the layer of the tourism value chain that creates visitor spend outside the venue, and that means that it can tap into government partnership at every level of event, invoking public investment. 
3. The legacy layer: The hardest to measure and the most durable. The layer that transforms a destination's long-term competitive position. 

ROI on event investment depends on the architecture of that stack, not the scale of the event. 

Destinations must move from calendars of events to a portfolio of events managed as a strategic asset. A portfolio isn't a better calendar. It provides a unified perspective of events as one strategic asset, not a collection of rival assets, enabling destinations to invest in people, facilities and other resources wisely and promote tourism year-round instead of during peak events. 

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