Denmark’s hosting of football’s European Under-21 Championship in June was a great success, claims a report released by Sport Event Denmark, entitled ‘Tourist Economic Impact Analysis and Evaluation’, which has given the country invaluable insight into its future prospects of staging international sports competitions.

The study reveals that the total tourism turnover (TTT) of the tournament – which was co-hosted by the Jutland cities of Aarhus, Herning, Viborg and Aalborg from June 11-25 and featured eight teams – was 61 million kroner, raised partly by 81,760 extra hotel stays in the country.

The total attendance of the 15 games was 101,147 – a total of 72,247 fans (67 percent male, average age 30) who watched an average 1.4 games each.  While only seven percent of the attendees were non-Danes, the international visitors accounted for 41 percent of the TTT. In Sweden in 2009, where the TTT was 44.5 percent higher thanks to a 163,196 total attendance, this share was only 16 percent.

In June alone, 2,500 Danish and 7,712 international online articles were written about the tournament, and there were an estimated 98 million total worldwide views on television, compared to only 85.3 million in 2009.

 Â“One of our objectives was to stage a fantastic championship on home ground and at the same time use the event as a platform for further major international football events in Denmark,” said tournament director Christian Bordinggaard of the Danish Football Association (DBU). “And I think we can say that we succeeded. This report is an important tool for us to highlight the many spin-offs generated by the event. It also provides us with useful information about our future event potential.”

The report – which has been presented in co-operation with the DBU, and approved by the continentÂ’s governing football body UEFA – draws attention to the financial benefit of using 800 volunteers, which it estimated to be 11.5 million kroner.

“This under-21 event is an excellent example of how Denmark can be branded through sports events,” added Sport Event Denmark chief executive Lars Lundov. Referring chiefly to social media platforms, he commended the “impressive” media coverage.

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