Festival will yield £1.3m more than Clipper 2012

The tall ship the Earl of Pembroke arrives on the River Foyle for the Clipper Homecoming Festival in 2012.

Londonderry is currently gearing up for a week long celebration of the sea that will feature a stopover by both the Clipper Round the World Race and pop legends, The Beach Boys.

An analysis of the financial dividend that arose from the 2012 Clipper stopover shows total expenditure on Northern Ireland businesses stood at £3.7m.

Two years on and the Chief Executive of Derry City Council Sharon O’Connor has expressed hope the festival can this year generate £5m for the local economy.

Asked how the Council arrived at the £5m figure, Derry City Council stated: “Our analysis of feedback received from spectators, participants and the Event Organiser indicates that the total expenditure on NI based businesses by these event stakeholders was £3.7m in 2012.

“This figure was arrived at through extensive primary research with each of the three key stakeholder groups and analysis of event information (e.g. budgets etc.).”

The analysis shows that in 2012 spectator spend on NI businesses was £2,334,715; non-spectator spend on NI businesses was £415,297; and Event Organiser spend on NI businesses was £989,119: a total spend of £3,739,131.

But Derry City Council thinks the expenditure will be more this time.

“We anticipate that for this year’s event visitor numbers and the duration of stay per visitor will increase.

“Combined with an increase in the number of NI traders at the event this is likely to increase the total expenditure to an estimated £5m,” the Council stated.