The effect of winning the 2010 FIFA World Cup on the tourism market value: The Spanish case

The objective of this article is to analyze the effect of winning the FIFA World Cup on the tourism market value, justified by the increase in brand knowledge experienced by the winning team's country. Filling this gap in research, the empirical analysis conducted on the victory of the Spanish National soccer team in the 2010 FIFA World Cup finds a significant increase in the Spanish tourism industry's market value, and shows that the results of individual World Cup matches also have an influence on tourism firm value: winning enhances and losing diminishes firm value, with both symmetric and asymmetric patterns. Important managerial implications are drawn and discussed.