Run in conjunction with last year’s event at Royal County Down, financial analysts have established that the Irish Open poured approximately £12m into Northern Ireland.
This includes a return to the local economy of £5m which in this instance means the Newry, Mourne and Down region, assessed predominantly through hotel and food & beverage spend.
Additional multipliers covering average spend per person and discretionary spending across the entire visitor segment of general admission right up to corporate guests were also assessed.
While other values were determined through suppliers, contractors, casual labour, increased staffing and extra employment by the army of staff and volunteers who contribute to make an Irish Open happen.
Paul Gillmon, Championship Director with the Irish Open, says that the figures tally consistently with the economic impact of, say, the Open Champioship at Royal Portrush – at an albeit far reduced number, but at an expected 10:1 ratio value.
So, what does that difference look like between an Irish Open and a Ryder Cup or Open Championship, both of which will take place on this island over the next three years?
“People always try to make a comparison, say with The Open from a scale perspective which we see as about 10x in terms of size,” explains Gillmon.
“The Open comes with a truly international field, it is a Major, and as a result of that it is something which clearly pulls people off their sofas,” he adds, in reference to the huge numbers who have travelled and will travel to Royal Portrush in July 2025.
The most crucial value indicator between the two Opens is the enormous difference in international visitors, relatively small for one but extraordinarily high for the other – which stands as one of the world’s great sporting occasions.
Portrush’s relatively isolated position at the very top of the country also means that most people who travel to the tournament will stay around the general area, allowing for a far greater spend and investment.
The numbers of visitors are incomparable too. Where you have a total of 71,000 patrons having attended the Irish Open this year, but there will be approximately 250,000 people expected at the Dunluce links.
Before looking a little more at The Open, it is worth pointing out that the Irish Open and in particular Northern Ireland Tourism are keen to emphasise the additional and future value to the local businesses within the area that stem from hosting the event.
The positive engagement with local companies and suppliers saw 150 traders being brought together at the Slieve Donard, beside RCD, three months before the Irish Open this year.
“A lot of businesses were picked up, say chocolate manufacturers or other suppliers, allowing them to ply their trade through the mechanism of our event,” adds Gillmon.
The impact of such initiatives cannot be measured in total due to the future values that these businesses might achieve, similar to future tourism numbers who may be attracted to visiting Royal County Down or the island of Ireland having watched the tournament on television.
Undoubtedly, The Open Championship and Ryder Cups have had significant impact for the ongoing growth and development of the Irish Golf brand, but what are they worth in cash and investment terms?
The event at Royal Portrush in 2019 – the 148th Open – brought in £100m in economic benefit to the North according to Tourism Northern Ireland, referring to an independently commissioned study by Sheffield Hallam University’s Sports Industry Research Centre (SIRC).
The R&A, which also released the findings of the study, said that this was broken down into new money entering the economy of £45m, while Northern Ireland also gained £37.3m in destination marketing benefit from more than 5,400 hours of global television coverage.
These numbers do not include additional economic benefit in the years following the Open Championship, to which there will be significant return in the tens of millions of euro.
We know that approximately three quarters of the high-end golf tourists come to Ireland and Northern Ireland from North America, where their decision-making will be influenced by links golf and by seeing that on television.
But going back to the figures that we do know, an extra £23.7 million was identified by Tourism Northern Ireland in Advertising Equivalent Value for Northern Ireland Golf Tourism.
This figure was monitored in other media coverage across the island of Ireland and internationally concluding that the Causeway Coast council area alone received a £26.21 million injection of new money from The Open.
For the Portrush event a staggering 237,750 fans attended the tournament making it a record for a Championship staged outside of St Andrews, with more than half of the spectators who attended The Open (57.6%) travelling from the UK (20.2%), while 18.2% came from the Republic of Ireland, and a further 13.4% arrived from North America.
What is most interesting is that the 2022 Open Championship at St Andrews, which was won by Australian Cameron Smith, generated an eye-catching £300 million in economic benefit for Scotland.
That study, commissioned by The R&A, VisitScotland and Fife Council showed that new money entering the economy reached £106m while research led by YouGov Sport also showed that £201m of destination marketing benefit was delivered for Scotland as a result of The 150th Open being broadcast worldwide through linear television and digital platforms.
Could this year’s Open, back at Royal Portrush, hit the same type of number as Scotland? Possibly not, but certainly it should be aiming for an impact of £150m now that it will be ‘established’ within the tournament roster.
The good news for the island keeps coming, if you have one eye on Adare Manor in 2027 and the Ryder Cup. The economic value of the 2023 competition in Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome has been analysed as coming in at €262m – somewhere between the aforementioned Opens in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
This figure shows an 11% surge since the previous European home Ryder Cup at Le Golf National in Paris and is built on the back of 271,000 people from 100 different countries in attendance.
With all of this data from Open Championships, Irish Opens and Ryder Cups, what does this all mean from where the individual golf fan attendee stands? Okay, when you consider organisational and operational costs you won’t get a truly accurate picture of per person investment, but you do get a better idea on the value of the tournament attendees.
If you look at the Italian Ryder Cup, this works out at a per head spend of €966.70, which, when you consider that the vast majority of attendees at a Ryder Cup are not from the immediate vicinity, stacks up in accommodation and food and beverage spending.
When we look at the figures for The Open at Royal Portrush in 2019, you see a considerable difference – based on currency conversion values of today, which converts £100m to €119.9m, or let’s just say €120m.
This works out at – calculated on an average spend per head by the 237,000 attendees – €506 each, a figure which will be greatly reduced on Rome, and which requires a deeper analysis in the near future.
This figure increases significantly though when comparing the Ryder Cup to the St Andrews Open of 2022. That £300M, three times more than Royal Portrush, equates at €359M, working out at a staggering €1,238 spend per head for what was the 150th Open.
How does all of this compare with Royal County Down? Well, let’s have a look. The £12m in economic benefit to the County Down and wider Northern Ireland region works out at a euro value of €14.4m, which when measured against the 71,000 attendees works out at an average spend of €202.81. While significantly lower, this is due to the vast majority of visitors attending from the island of Ireland, with most of those day trippers, getting into their cars and going home at the end of each day.
While this final piece of analysis is imperfect when the differences in organisational and operational costs per region are considered, it still gives a strong indication on the different values of the different types of tournaments.
One thing that’s absolutely without question is that, whether it’s an Irish Open, an Open Championship at Royal Portrush (or Portmarnock) or a Ryder Cup at Adare Manor, the income generated by these high-end tournaments are considerable for local and national economies and shows that these tournaments are generating significant values in real time, not to mention the longer term values which are typically measured in the 3-5 years following the event.
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