The best world ski show can be enjoyed from yesterday until March 19 at Grandvalira Soldeu El Tarter, where the Andorra 2023 Alpine Ski World Cup Finals take place. During this week, the 25 best skiers and skiers in the world will compete to win the Crystal Globe that the FIS (International Ski Federation) awards to the winners of the general classification and those of each discipline.
The World Cup Finals are the most important event in alpine skiing, after the Winter Olympics and the World Championships. A sporting event of this magnitude has a huge impact both on the organizing ski resort and on the host country. Measuring this impact has several facets to consider when setting goals.
One main objective is to promote and improve the positioning of Andorra and Grandvalira as world-class snow tourism destinations. A key indicator to understand how positioning evolves is to analyze the station's customer mix. In recent years, especially since the arrival of the World Cup in Soldeu El Tarter, visitors from countries such as Sweden, Norway and Finland have increased significantly, partly thanks to the awareness of the resort as the venue for the World Cup.
More recently, the collaboration agreement with Ikon Pass, a North American operator that manages the Aspen resorts in the US and Lake Louise in Canada, among others, has been possible thanks to the prestige achieved by Andorra as an organizer of major sporting events. This season, the first North American skiers to hold an Ikon Pass ski pass have chosen Andorra as their destination. Other countries like Germany and Italy, apart from France, obviously, have increased their visitors, familiar with the station through the competitions broadcast on their televisions.
But, if there are two really relevant indicators in terms of economic impact, they are the average spending per visitor and the impact on the media. The average expense is usually measured according to the consumption that each visitor makes during their stay in the country. Several studies show that for every euro allocated to the ski pass, the average cost of the skier in the country is 7 euros on concepts such as accommodation, restaurants, shopping and leisure. An event of the size of the World Cup Finals implies an increase in visitors directly related to the competition and an increase in those interested in following the races live. The first group includes the sports family, which exceeds 700 people during a 9-day stay, and the second, more than 400 accredited professionals. Its direct impact is expected to exceed 4 million euros in consumption of local services. To get an idea of the magnitude, one can consider the number of more than 5,000 hotel nights during the days of the event. The second group, that of the fans, is expected to exceed 25,000, although not all of them are visitors, since the entire country is involved in these Finals.
As for the media, measuring the impact of this type of competition translates into audience data and advertising return. The television audience forecast for this event is more than 335 million viewers.
The 2019 edition of the World Cup Finals had an advertising return impact of more than 18 million euros, as far as it could be measured, since it is impossible to do it for each and every impact on a global scale, and that is why the main target markets are chosen. For the 2023 edition, considering that the dimension of the event has grown significantly, these figures are expected to be exceeded.
Finally, one last impact must be considered, that generated by sponsors, an important source of income that should allow us to face an operating budget that exceeds 4.5 million euros. To calculate this impact, the organization has contracted the services of a company specialized in measuring the value of each impact for each sponsor, both on television and in online and offline media. In alpine ski competitions, it will be the first time that this methodology is used, already present in sports such as F1 and MotoGP.
