Measuring the Economic Impact of COVID-19 on the UK’s Leisure and Sport during the 2020 Lockdown

Themis Kokolakakis,Fernando Lera-Lopez,Girish Ramchandani

doi:10.3390/su132413865

Themis Kokolakakis, Fernando Lera-Lopez + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su132413865

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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.

Highlights

COVID-19, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARSCoV-2), was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 11 March2020
We show the results for the leisure and sport-related consumption and the changes in sport-related Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following the Sport Satellite Account (SSA) methodology described in the previous section
This paper concludes that sport-related GDP in the United Kingdom (UK) during the 2020 pandemic showed a decline of 23%, with a maximum contraction of 66% during the lockdown period, with significant differences among sport industries under analysis

Summary

Introduction

COVID-19, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARSCoV-2), was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 11 March2020. The pandemic resulted in different forms of lockdowns across almost all countries in the world. Such lockdowns were enforced on two fronts: domestic and international. Some countries sealed their national borders, restricting the movement of goods/services and people from one country to another. In the case of the United Kingdom (UK), the economy in constant prices reduced by 10%, an unprecedented level for peacetime. This was the worst economic performance relative to any other comparable country (in terms of economic and population size) in Europe, where the forecasted economic decline was about 8 34 % [2]. The economic decline placed a lot of pressure on profit margins, with many companies unable to continue operating as usual without substantial state intervention

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