On the occasion of the 23rd edition of the International Book Fair, the Fondazione per il Libro, la Musica e la Cultura commissioned Fondazione Fitzcarraldo to conduct research on the Economic Dimension of the International Book Fair.

The research was promoted and entirely supported by the Chamber of Commerce of Torino, whose results were obtained by analysing almost 2,000 interviews with exhibitors, the public and organisers.

The public at the Fair

More than 300,000 visits (exactly 307,650) in five days, 29,500 of which due to school visits.

The share of the non-local public is very significant: 37% comes from outside Piemonte and 2% from abroad.

About one participant in two is aged between 30 and 50 with a slight prevalence of women (55%). The average excludes school visits.

This is a strongly motivated public: more than 90% of the visitors from outside the city stated that they had come to Torino to visit the Fair; almost none said that they had come across the Fair by chance (less than 2%).

About 50,000 visitors from outside Piemonte stayed overnight in the area: they stayed for an average of 3.13 days. Lombardia (13.7%), Liguria (4.4%), Emilia-Romagna (4%) and Lazio (3.2%) are the most well-represented regions.

The public of the Fair is one of strong readers: one person in four reads more than 30 books a year and about 4 million books are read in a year by the public that comes to the Fair.

The public’s expenditure

As a whole the public of the Fair spent:

• €14,305,000 in purchases of books and related articles

• €4,154,000 in overnight stays (hotels and B&B)

• €5,475,000 in catering (inside and outside the Fair)

• €1,534,000 in transport (taxi, public services and transfers)

• €1,740,000 shopping and expenses related to leisure and culture.

• €650,000 for entrance tickets for the Fair

The public total expenditure was €27,850,000.

The people from outside Piemonte who stayed overnight spent an average of €266 during their stay for the Fair.

As regards spending on published works, the average expenditure is between €50 and €55. While 28% of visitors spends no more than €20, 7% spends more than €100.

The total costs for the organisation of the Fair amount to €4,598,000.

The economic impact

The overall economic impact generated by the Fair amounts to approximately €52,432,000, €20.258.000 of which for direct expenditure and €32,174,000 for indirect and additional spending.

The overall standard work units generated by the Fair amount to 384: this means that each edition of the Fair is able to create 384 new temporary jobs.

The public and institutional funding of the Fair amounts to about €1,612,000.

For every euro spent by the funding bodies (Regione Piemonte, Provincia di Torino, City of Torino, Bank Foundations, Chamber of Commerce) €12.5 is generated in terms of direct expenditure and €33.3 in terms of overall effects.