Implications for tourism management of including uncertainty in the estimation of the economic impact of sports events

PurposeStudies that measure the economic impact of events usually disclose deterministic results. This situation implies a methodological problem that compromises the veracity of the estimates. This aspect is particularly relevant in the field of sports tourism. For these reasons, this study aims to empirically analyse the estimate of the initial injection of money from sporting events considering uncertainty, and show its variability.Design/methodology/approachUsing surveys from five sporting events, a database with a total of 2,902 responses is analysed. With these cases as illustration to show the problem, the initial injection of money from the events is estimated. To include the uncertainty derived from the use of data gathered in the surveys, the confidence intervals are obtained using bootstrap.FindingsThe authors find remarkable differences between the current study’s results and deterministic results. In general, except for one of the events studied, the adverse possible scenario of being in the lower limit is higher than the more positive possible scenario. Moreover, in some cases, the lower limit is around one-third of the average or higher. It can imply an important cut in the expected impact. The results obtained allow us to show the differences between deterministic studies and those which include uncertainty.Originality/valueThe work presents prominent implications. Empirically, the inclusion of uncertainty in economic impact studies provides greater reliability to the results, defeating the idea of deterministic estimates. Managerially, working only with deterministic results limits the decision-making capacity of managers, and speculation increases in impact studies.