Since 1997, the date of the first edition of the now MEO Sudoeste, thousands of festival-goers have flocked to the Costa Vicentina with their tents, tins of sausages and debit/credit cards to cover any and all needs that may arise during the festival days.
Although the profile of the festival-goer is quite different from the one who chose Sudoeste in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly in terms of age and economic capacity, the truth is that the economic impact of this event in the Beja district continues to be extremely important for the region's businesses.
Quantifying the economic impact of an event of this scale is, as you can see, not a simple task. However, thanks to the help of REDUNIQ InsightsAs a result of the knowledge solution that makes transactional analysis tools available to businesses, today we have access to extremely important data that allows us to understand the economic impact of this year's Southwest on the various sectors that make up the business fabric of the Beja district.
So let's see how the economy of the district that is the capital of Baixo Alentejo behaved over the five days of MEO Sudoeste 2024.
MEO Sudoeste 2024 Festival brought more transactions to the region's businesses, but lower turnover
According to REDUNIQ Insights, between 6 and 10 August, the date of Sudoeste 2024, the number of transactions registered in the universe of retailers connected to the REDUNIQ payment network increased by 21% compared to the days of the 2023 festival.
As we mentioned in the title of this tab, the increase in the number of transactions ultimately failed to prevent an almost generalised drop in turnover in all sectors of activity.
Outside of this negative wave in terms of turnover during the festival, we find Restaurants, a sector that recorded an increase of 34% in its turnover compared to 2023, and Traditional Food Retail, which, in turn, closed MEO Sudoeste 2024 with a growth of 12% compared to the same period in 2023.
This drop in turnover is due to a 7% drop in the average ticket (average amount spent on each purchase) of festival-goers. While the average ticket at Sudoeste 2023 was 32.28€, this year's event saw this figure fall to just 30.21€.
Traditional Food Retail and Catering in Odemira profited from MEO Sudoeste 2024
If we narrow down our analysis and focus on the impact of Southwest on the economy of Odemira, the municipality where the event is based, we can see that despite the drop in turnover in 2% compared to last year's festival, there were two sectors that came out on top: Traditional Food Retail and Catering.
Food is always one of the most important points for a festival-goer and this necessarily turns out to be an extremely important factor in the financial health of businesses linked to the sector.
This is exactly what happened to the Traditional Food Retail sector, which recorded a 53% increase in turnover during the festival when compared to the 2023 edition of the event.
In addition to Traditional Food Retail, there was also strong growth in the Catering sector, which ended up closing MEO Sudoeste with a turnover 20% higher than that achieved during last year's Sudoeste.
As was the case in the district, the overall turnover of businesses in the municipality of Odemira fell, but the number of transactions ended the festival with a growth of 3% compared to 2023.
From the total number of transactions, the weight of national consumers in the turnover of local businesses stands out, as they accounted for a total of 66% of the overall turnover over the five days of the festival, even though this percentage is equivalent to a drop of 1% compared to the same period last year.
Irish and Spanish in force at MEO Sudoeste
As for the origin of foreign turnover (34%), REDUNIQ Insights data shows that the countries with the greatest weight were Ireland (25%), Spain (18%), France (11%), Germany (10%) and the Netherlands (9%).
In terms of average ticket, the data shows a decrease of 6% compared to 2023, from 34.23€ (average ticket from 9 to 12 August 2023) to 32.32€ (average ticket from 7 to 10 August 2024).
Despite this overall drop in the average ticket, spending on foreign cards totalled 58.67€, 4% more than in 2023 (56.47€).
Finally, in terms of the relationship between the average ticket and the sectors of the municipality's economy, the REDUNIQ Insights report tells us that the best result was obtained by the Hotel and Tourist Activities sector, with a growth of 10% from 75.03€ (average ticket in the South West 2023 period) to 82.74€ (average ticket in South West 2024).
The Traditional Food Retail sector, which had an average ticket of €19.72 during the 2023 Sudoeste period, ended the 2024 edition of the festival with an increase of 6% to an average ticket of €20.92.
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