Definition: Turnover generated by the congress

Category: Tourism

Definition:

The turnover generated by congress activities can be estimated taking into account expenditure generated by organisers and participants through other sales (purchases) of goods and services including specific associated taxes but excluding VAT charged to every client. It also ought to include every cost billed to clients (transport, packaging, etc.) even if not shown separately on a bill.  

Comments:

Expenditure can be estimated through two questions put to the organiser and participants about various expenditure patterns. If the same expense is charged by two agents, it will be counted only by the latter of the two.

Organiser's expenditure

Organiser's expenses may be classified into five groups:

1. Cost of renting the conference hall or venue. This cost is the price paid by the organisation to the owner of the congress facilities.

2. Costs of speakers. Included here are speakers' expenses such as transport, accommodation and other expenses.

3. Cost of auxiliary services. In this case there are two possibilities:

a) Subcontracted services, which involve the price established in the subcontract;
b) Services provided by the organiser's own organisation, in which case one needs to know the internal costs of the goods and services provided. 

In the second case, the estimation process is more complex. It is necessary to take the accounting structure of expenses and separate whatever has been used at a specific congress. This separation process is necessary in order to ascertain the costs of a congress; alternatively, it would be sufficient to know the volume of goods and services during the year, including the subcontracting of auxiliary services and salaries paid.
  The costs of auxiliary services include the following costs:

 \ Costs of goods and services within the venue not included in the cost of hire
 \ Costs of congress promotion and advertising 
 \ Translation and interpretation services
 \ Stewarding
 \ Escort services (guides, chauffeurs, etc.)
 \ Public relations services
 \ Car parking services
 \ Security services
 \ Cleaning services
 \ Catering services
 \ Cloakroom services
  
4.  Other organiser costs before the congress
5.  Other organiser costs after the congress

Participants' expenditure

While an estimate of organisers' expenses can be obtained through firms' or organisations' accounts, the expenses of participants require on-site surveying. The basic variables for estimating participants' spending have already been determined in Section II, specific variable 12. Expenditure estimates are often made solely for foreigners, who are estimated to spend twice as much as nationals [Fighiera, 1992]. However, both nationals and foreigners should be put to direct inquiry.

National spending as opposed to foreign spending

Once the data concerning visitor and organiser costs are obtained, the proportion benefiting the region or country of origin and what remains there must be estimated. In order to obtain an evaluation related to national expenditure, the services contracted by the participants in the country of origin and the services contracted by the organisers for foreign residents will have to be subtracted. Therefore participant origin and means of transport must be taken into account.

In short, spending generated within a country by a congress may be estimated from the following:

CONGRESS SPENDING SPENT WITHIN THE COUNTRY =
Spending generated by the organisers +
Spending generated by the participants -
Spending generated by the organisers not related to the congress activity -
Contracts paid for by the participant for non-residents -
Contracts paid for by the organisers for non-residents