Economic Impact Studies: Instruments for Political Shenanigans?

attributed to tourists. It is the return that residents receive that is important, rather than only that proportion of the total return that filters back to the council. Economic impact analyses have an obvious political mission. They invariably are commissioned by tourism entities and usually are driven by a desire to demonstrate their sponsors’ positive contribution to the economic prosperity of the jurisdiction that subsidizes their programs or projects. The intent of a study is to position tourism in the minds of elected officials and taxpayers as being a key element in the community’s economy. The effectiveness of this strategy is illustrated in the case study reported in Appendix A. Another approach that used economic impact data to reposition a tourism investment is shown in Table 1. The city was considering termination of one of its festivals because its net cost to the city was $230,000. However, when this investment is reconceptualized as residents’ money rather than the city’s money, the key measure is revenue accruing to residents, not the city. This embraces expenditures by visitors both inside the festival gates and elsewhere in the community. When this income is aggregated, it suggests residents’ return on investment is 28%. There is a sound conceptual rationale for economicimpact studies, and they have a legitimate political role in informing both elected officials and taxpayers of the economic contributions of tourism to community residents’ prosperity. However, this legitimacy is predicated on the studies’ being undertaken with integrity. Because the motivation undergirding them usually is to prove the legitimacy of the sponsor’s economic case, the temptation to engage in mischievous practices is substantial. In some cases, the practices are the result of ignorance and are inadvertent, but too often they are deliberate and enacted with intent to mislead and distort. The array of mischievous practices used that breach the requirement for integrity has been discussed elsewhere (Crompton 1995). The intent in this article is to illustrate a variety of forms in which deliberate malfeasance practices are manifested and to suggest the political motives and consequences of those procedural abuses.