The Cape Town International Jazz Festival: More than just jazz

Economic impact studies have been used to value goods with the characteristicsof both public and private goods, such as arts festivals, and have been useful in providing aquantifiable monetary estimate of their worth and, more accurately, of the impact of suchevents on a specific region. This paper provides just such a valuation, using economicimpact analysis conducted on surveys of visitor and organiser spending at the 2009 CapeTown International Jazz Festival. On the basis of the survey data and event budget, a socialaccounting matrix (SAM) for the Western Cape Province was used to estimate the economicvalue of the festival to the province's economy (using the classic SAM's multiplier approach).The results of the analysis show that the festival generates approximately R158 million viavisitor and organiser spending, and that 1059 jobs depend on it.