Measuring the economic effects of events using google trends

Abstract

The chapter describes the different techniques that may be used to measure the short-term economic fallouts of cultural events and, in particular, of music and opera festivals. It tries to distinguish failsafe methods-which are unfortunately not always easy to use-from more doubtful ones, in particular contingent valuation and interviews-which lead to exaggerated evaluations. Examples are provided in each case. We also suggest a new and inexpensive method to evaluate the relative numbers of visitors (by country of origin), which does not suffer from the overstatements provided by contingent valuation and interviews.