Economic Impact Analysis of the Irish Conference Market: An Input-Output Approach

This thesis examined the economic impact of the Conference Market in Ireland. To generate an estimate of economic impact in the case of conference tourism I undertook a nationwide survey at various regional events and collated expenditure and cost information from delegates and conference organising committees. An original and innovative survey instrument was created to collect this data. The survey instrument also necessitated meetings with conference organiser employees and management to ascertain an accurate measurement of expenditure generation. Employing Input-Output modelling, I calculated an estimate of the direct, indirect and induced effects of delegate expenditure on key economic variables including, output, income and employment