About Destination Vancouver  

Destination Vancouver is a non-profit, member-based destination marketing and management organization that promotes the spectacular city of Vancouver, British Columbia, as a premier travel destination. We support Vancouver’s tourism industry through marketing initiatives, event support, and partnerships with local businesses and institutions to attract visitors from around the world with a mission to responsibly build a resilient and sustainable visitor economy.  

Destination Profile

Population Size: 2 million

Operating Budget Size: $20-30 million

Geographic Location: Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the lower mainland region of British Columbia.

Visit our website to learn more. 

Destination Challenge

To secure a bid for the 2025 Web Summit, the world's premier tech conference, our destination needed to demonstrate the value of business events through economic impact. 

Our Approach to the Event Impact Calculator (EIC)

In Vancouver, we use the calculator to evaluate the impact of business, sports, and cultural events in our destination. By estimating economic impacts, the calculator helps secure stakeholder support from government officials, small businesses, and industry partners, including hotels and restaurants. We use the calculator to quantify direct, indirect, and induced impacts, highlighting the need for greater tourism investment in Vancouver. This data-driven approach helps gain more support from government officials, community leaders, and residents in communicating the value of a business event.  

The Event Impact Calculator (EIC) helps our destination measure business event performance by setting realistic expectations, identifying trends related to hosting events, and improving our strategy for attracting and maintaining group business. In our approach, we use historical data from the calculator to help set a benchmark to measure the future performance of our destination organization by comparing the economic impacts of events year over year. We then share these insights with local business leaders, restauranteurs, hoteliers, and other leaders to educate them on the benefits of procuring additional events for the visitor economy. 

Project

Recently, it was announced that our destination will host Web Summit, the world’s premier tech conference, in May 2025. This marks its North American debut. Vancouver's economy will be significantly boosted by the event, which is expected to draw 35,000 attendees from around the world, including entrepreneurs, investors, and members of the media. The Event Impact Calculator played a vital role in securing this event by demonstrating its economic value through direct and induced impacts, projected tax revenue, full-time employment figures, and enhanced services to relevant stakeholders.

Additionally, the Event Impact Calculator helped our destination estimate attendance of Web Summit impact through room nights, data on visitors, and highlighting ways in which the community will benefit from this large-scale event. Communicating these insights to government officials, event organizers, and small businesses helped advocate for a return on their investment and enhanced residents' quality of life. Other examples include estimating pandemic-related losses or projecting the impact of future events, which help demonstrate the value and significance of events to stakeholders, thereby securing their support and funding. 

Results & Key Performance Indicators

To secure funding through key partnerships, we used the Event Impact Calculator to demonstrate the event’s value. This included projections for full-time employment, increased tax revenue, and higher accommodation revenue in Vancouver. The detailed insights provided were instrumental in gaining stakeholder support, showcasing the event's direct and induced economic impact, and educating officials on the benefits of the visitor economy.

“Obtaining additional funding for Web Summit would not have been successful without the use of the Event Impact Calculator” – Destination Vancouver.

Once our organization was able to demonstrate impact numbers, it took approximately two months to secure approval for the tech conference. The Event Impact Calculator was pivotal in showcasing the direct economic impact of $57 million from a single event. Highlighting this increased revenue provided an authentic story for stakeholders, reinforcing the benefits to Vancouver. Further, collaboration with our stakeholders also helped to overcome barriers, enabling the event to move forward. 

Lessons Learned

Regarding legacy, our organization utilized the Event Impact Calculator (EIC) to demonstrate the impact of a large-scale event and leave a legacy by bringing additional employment opportunities in the technology sector to Vancouver. The calculator helped open the door and move us forward to help leave a legacy in the technology sector, resulting in enhanced quality of life for our residents.

In addition, we worked with our funding partners to educate them on the economic impact of the technology conference beyond the initial figures. From our perspective, it was not enough to show the initial numbers; we needed to show the event's outcomes and its impact on other services, including transportation and increased revenue at local restaurants. By demonstrating the economic impact of events, including the Web Summit, we can build up resident support for future events.  

Actionable Advice

Our advice to other destinations using the Event Impact Calculator is to speak to other factors beyond revenue numbers to enhance stakeholder engagement with local leaders. While the direct amount of tax revenue and job creation are essential figures, there is an opportunity for destinations to speak about the broader economic impact, including induced effects that speak to the increased positive impact on the people in the community. In addition, if you are looking to attract conferences with large attendees, we recommend that your destination has a future investment strategy.  

Our recommendation for the output report is to tailor the figures to the target audience. For example, a media audience may be interested in the direct number, while additional stakeholders may prefer the indirect number. It’s essential to pick and choose when to use the right number to report for the best outcome. From our perspective, showing the macro number is not enough; you need to show the impact beyond the numbers.

Lastly, we recommend gathering the correct data into the tool, as you want to be as accurate as possible in your output. Understanding the input as it relates to the tool and the impact behind the report's output is essential. To ensure consistency across the board, periodic audits of the output report should be done to ensure correct calculations, including pre- and post-event. 

Key Takeaways  

• The event impact calculator was key in securing government funding for the Web Summit as it provided proof of value for the conference.  
•  The detailed insights the EIC provided allowed us to demonstrate to various levels of government the potential tax revenue they would receive, job creation, and accommodation revenue they would obtain, which proved instrumental in gaining their support.  
•  Without the EIC and the detail it provided, along with funding support from our key funders, securing a major tech conference like the Web Summit would not have been possible.