Secto Rally Finland brought over EUR 17 million to the Jyväskylä region

In the general competition, there was no opportunity to celebrate a victory for Finland, but a great sports weekend was crowned by the second-place achievement of Kalle Rovanperä, and Esapekka Lappi's phenomenal fight for third place in a car that ended up at the finish line missing both windows and part of the roof.

Seeing Finland’s rally heroes in the home race was clearly anticipated, and the feeling of a great sporting celebration was already felt on the first day of the race. In this case, visitor records were set at the crowded Harju city special test in the core of Jyväskylä: no fewer than 19,500 spectators witnessed the start of Finland’s most significant annual sports event.

230 000 viewer experiences – direct tourist income total EUR 17.5 million

Secto Rally Finland, organised by AKK Sports Oy, organised a spectator experience that reached    230 000 viewers this year.  Moreover, the direct tourist income total as analysed by the Salmi Eventizer digital method was EUR 17.5 million for the Jyväskylä region and Central Finland. 

‘These results are marvellous after the difficult coronavirus pandemic years. We are now nicely back in the group of major events and an audience favourite. The Jyväskylä region saw an economic impact of over 17 million euros, but it was also spectacularly large on the entire national level. The World Cup Rally brought considerable earnings to hundreds of businesses, not to mention support for the vitality of local associations and clubs. In addition, the great atmosphere of the event came up strongly again in the visitor feedback as a significant element of attraction,’ Markus Häkkinen, Financial and Administrative Director of AKK Sports Oy, concludes.

Image

Jyväskylä city mayor Timo Koivisto also rejoices in the successful result of the rally.

‘The atmosphere in Jyväskylä was excellent, and those attending the special stage in Harju reached record numbers. The economic impact on our region’s enterprises was significant, and the feedback received by the city from entrepreneurs has been quite positive. For the city, one big value is also the international visibility obtained during the event, which increased this year from what it was before,’ Mr Koivisto sums up. 

Secto Rally Finland seen and heard widely

Secto Rally Finland was seen and heard all over. All-time records were broken in, for instance, the Yle Areena service, as the Finnish round of the World Cup Rally was watched during the competitive weekend to a total of over 5.5 million hours.  In addition, Yle’s TV broadcasts reached 1.6 million Finnish viewers. The Ruuhimäki Power Stage, popular during the Sunday rally events, was viewed by over half a million.

‘The lows we had fallen to during the heavy coronavirus years disappeared from view in all the media attention. In Secto Rally Finland’s own digital channels, we also achieved a record number of content users during the rally week – almost eight million. Moreover, with a good model of co-operation, media company Mediatalo Keskisuomalainen, substantial comprehensive visibility was obtained. This year there were 400 accredited media representatives on hand at the World Cup Rally, of which 65% were from abroad. Especially after the corona rally of 2021, this marks a superb return to an upward trend,’ says AKK Sports Oy’s Director of Communications, Sami Kolsi.   

A new data collection tool being piloted

This year, AKK Sports Oy and the City of Jyväskylä implemented a visitor survey for Secto Rally Finland using a digital method called Salmi Eventlizer, which collects information from event visitors. With Salmi’s method, the direct tourist income from the event this years on the area as well as visitors’ satisfaction were determined. Altogether, 4 825 visitors to the event responded to the survey.

‘Salmi’s digital tool experiment was part of the International Sports Events Jyväskylä project. We wanted to pilot the tool in what is for us a very important World Cup Rally event and, out of interest, AKK Sports embarked on it in collaboration with us.   One of the goals of the project is obtaining a better understanding of various sports events and their impacts on cities. The pilot is part of the national Sport Event Management Finland collaboration, including five pivotal sport event cities in Finland,’ Project Manager Taija Lappeteläinen from the City of Jyväskylä relates.

The last time the economic impact of the Finland’s World Cup Rally was studied was in 2017, when Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences implemented a study for AKK Sports Oy and the City of Jyväskylä.

The data for 2022 are not comparable with the 2017 study, because at the time the financial impact of the event was studied more widely using a research method that also included the purchases made by rally teams, AKK and media in the region. In this year’s analysis, the standard method developed to find out the direct spending of money by tourists has been used, where the focus is on tourists’ consumption during the event in the Jyväskylä region.

Jyväskylä

Jyväskylä is a busy, vibrant city hosting thousands of events of various sizes. You can find excellent areas for events in Jyväskylä – for example, for arranging festivals, concerts, sports events, markets, meetings, trade fairs and conferences. A large part of the event venues are located right in the centre of the city. A compact, vital city core ensures that all the services needed by visitors can be found by them within a walking distance. Attractive events along with their visitors bring extra colour to youthful Jyväskylä. More information about Jyväskylä, the city for events.

AKK Sports Oy

AKK Sports Oy is a marketing company owned in full by the AKK-Motorsport association.  The operational idea behind the company is to develop and realise top motor sports-related events.  The objective of the company is also to transfer its own know-how to the association’s member clubs through joint events, series and programmes. AKK Sports Oy’s largest annual production is the Finnish round of the FIA World Rally Championship, Secto Rally Finland.

Jyväskylä – for international sports events

Jyväskylä – for international sports events: This project, based on energising the tourist event and industry through an ecosystem of sports events, is financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and is a REACT-EU project, financed as part of the actions implemented by the European Union due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project period is 01/11/2021 – 31/08/2023.

Image: AKK Sports Oy / Toni Ollikainen