Last 6 March, València’s city council presented the study “Impacto Económico de las Fallas de la ciudad de València” (Economic impact of Fallas from the city of València), elaborated by researchers from the MESVAL Chair –José Manuel Pardo (director), Juan Francisco Martínez and Manuela Pardo–, all of them professors from the Faculty of Economics at the Universitat de València.
As a big event, the celebration of Fallas in València has a huge economic impact due to the demand for goods and services and, as a result, people who celebrate this festivity have additional expenses. The research has analysed the expenses of the main agents –falleras and falleros, falleras’ commissions, associations, tourists and residents, public enterprises and administrations–, which ascend to almost 400 million €.
To know the expenses of the falleros and falleras, a form via Whatsapp was distributed following the “snowball” method, which was answered by more than 3.500 families, representing more than the 10 % of the population. Differentiating between households with at least one member on the honour roll and the rest, it was found that a Fallas family spends averagely around 1.700 annual euros (excluding the fee for its Falla and the expenses spent in it), a figure that can reach 12.000 euros if any member is president and/or Major Fallera. Most part of the expenses is for the clothing, that ascends to 58 % in families without members on the honour roll, reducing its weight to 43 % for the rest, after incorporating another type of expenses, such as particular clothing, protocols, etc. In total, the expenses spent by falleras and falleros are 75 million €.
The Falleras commission, with an average of 100 thousand euros of budget, use averagely the 27 % of it to the Falla, distributing the rest to food and drink expenses (16 %), the to the casal (14 %), and to defray the great number of activities that are made along the year (13 %). The resting percentage is completed with expenses for transport, printing, flowers, etc. Among the 348 commissions of the city, it is estimated an expense of 35 million €.
Undoubtedly, the main investment agent of this festivity is the touristic one. Almost 1.3 million people wander around the city streets. Of this number, half a million are residents and the rest is distributed among regional (448 thousand people), national (200 thousand), and international visitors (150 thousand). Their expenses patterns are different, as well as the number of days that they enjoy Fallas, and the number of nights that they overnight in paying accommodation. The expenses data has been obtained with approximately a thousand surveys at the street, while the number of visitors and their origin have been extracted from the big data by Telefónica DataTech, being this study the first one that has benefited from phone technology, obtaining, this way, an extraordinary accuracy in numbers. In total, the touristic expense reaches 270 million €.
If we add to the previous ones the incurred expenses of the associations (half a million), the contribution of companies to the party (display on social media, placement of antennas, sponsors, advertisements… worth of 8 million) and the expenses of the different public administrations, in which València’s city council stands out, there is a value of 11 million (besides other 4 million in grants, which are not considered so there is no double accounting). The total of additional expense that is generated during the josefinas celebrations is approximately of 400 million €.
Thanks to the collaboration of Ivie and using a methodology of the input-output model, it has been calculated that these additional expenses create a total impact on sales that surpasses 700 million €, with an impact in the GDP of 177 million and 6.440 jobs. It should be noted that, although the expenses are more concentrated in the hospitality industry and in traditional sectors related with festivities –highlighting the textile industry–, the total impact is extended to mostly every Valencian economic sectors, both to sales level, and to income and employment. This impact represents a 0.29 % of the province’s GDP, and a 0.53 % of employment.
Valencian people, proud of our festivity, are completely aware of the Fallas’ outstanding impact socially and culturally. Now, with this study, we can confirm the importance of the economic impact too.
- If you want to learn more about this study, you can download it on www.uv.es/catedra-mesval
