Measuring the economic impact of COVID-19 on the UK’s leisure and sport during the 2020 Lockdown

KOKOLAKAKIS, Themis, LERA-LOPEZ, Fernando and RAMCHANDANI, Girish (2021). Measuring the economic impact of COVID-19 on the UK’s leisure and sport during the 2020 Lockdown. Sustainability, 13 (24).

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Abstract

This research evaluates the effect of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic on sport Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and consumer expenditure in the leisure sector in the United Kingdom (UK). The leisure sector is divided into leisure at home and away from home, examining in this way the different patterns that emerged because of the national lockdown in 2020. The effect on sport GDP is examined using the Office for National Statistics (ONS) surveys and the UK Sport Satellite Account (SSA). The study found that, because of its reliance on human contact, sport GDP is likely to decline by more than twice the rate of the overall economy. Furthermore, this finding is consistent with the 2020 consumer expenditure on leisure that shows increases in spending on home leisure but also a huge decline in spending on out-of-home entertainment. The decline in GDP is extremely likely to put pressure on profit margins and hence threaten the survival of private enterprises, raising issues of sustainability under conditions of a pandemic. Increases in long-term public funding for reducing sport inequalities should be considered along with short-term relief packages for the sport sector. Additional policy suggestions are offered to address these issues.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	** From MDPI via Jisc Publications Router ** Licence for this article: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ **Journal IDs: eissn 2071-1050 **History: published 15-12-2021; accepted 07-12-2021
Uncontrolled Keywords:	COVID-19, sport, Sport Satellite Accounts, consumer spending, sustainability
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.3390/su132413865
SWORD Depositor:	Colin Knott
Depositing User:	Colin Knott
Date Deposited:	20 Dec 2021 15:56
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2021 16:00
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/29457

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