GSI Report 2016 – Rio nets $1.2bn of tourism impact while 2015 events net $3bn from overseas tourism
Economic impact of Rio 2016’s 1.17 million tourists worth $1.2bn; 2015’s major sporting events attracted over 13.4 million spectators worth $3bn in overseas tourism
Analysis by Sportcal, due to be published in the Global Sports Impact (GSI) Report 2016 next week, has found that the 1.17 million tourists that travelled to the city during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, with 410,000 of them coming from overseas, represented a direct economic impact to the Rio economy of around $1.2 billion. This was less than predicted pre-Games, but better than expected given the low attendance levels during the event.
The GSI Report 2016 analyses the major sporting events of 2015 and estimates that the 83 world championships and multi-sport games studied in the report attracted around 13.4 million spectators.
The Rugby World Cup attracted the highest attendances in 2015 with 2.47 million spectators, followed by the FIFA Women’s World Cup with 1.35 million and the Pan American Games with 1.15 million.

The Rugby World Cup also had the highest world championship average match attendance, while the UCI Road World Championships had the highest average day attendance.
The Pan American Games attracted the highest average attendance for a multi-sport games, followed by the Summer Universiade and the Special Olympics World Games.
The 83 events studied attracted over 2 million overseas spectators, generating a direct economic impact of over $3 billion for the host cities and countries.
The GSI Report 2016 reviews the major sporting events of 2015 in detail and examines the impacts of these events across a wide range of sectors: economic; tourism; media; social media; sponsorship; sporting; and social.

It also considers some of the major governance issues that have been facing sport in the last 18 months and asks a group of leading experts and academics what sport has to do to improve its governance model.
The GSI Report 2016 is packed with analysis and data on a wide range of sports and events.
This 400-plus-page report is a must-read for anyone who is involved in hosting, televising, sponsoring and organising major sporting events.