Residents’ perception and economic impact of bullfighting: the case of Feria del Toro (Olivenza, Spain)

ABSTRACT

Despite being a controversial spectacle, bullfighting is a cultural event with relevant touristic and economic impacts. Consequently, local support for bullfighting may be influenced by perceptions of the economic returns generated as a result of hosting this spectacle. This paper characterizes bullfight tourism, computes the economic effect of a bullfighting fair, and examines the extent to which perceived economic impacts affect its local support. As a case study, we investigate the bullfighting fair in Olivenza (Spain). After conducting a survey to nearly 700 attendees of the fair, we estimate this event's economic impact through an input-output model. An ordered probit regression and a logit model are next estimated to evaluate whether residents’ support for the fair is connected with the perceived economic effect. Findings reveal that local support, especially from those attending the fair, is influenced by perceptions of positive impacts.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism
• bullfight
• economic impact
• Spain
• local support

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of Diputación of Badajoz for the support received for developing this work. Author #2 acknowledges the support of cicyt-ECO2016-75805-R. We are grateful for the comments and support by, Verónica de Haro, Luis César Herrero, Geoffrey Hewings and Julián Ramajo.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Marvin (1988) provides a good anthropological description of corridas.

2 A popular legislative initiative led to the declaration of Law 18/2013, according to which bullfighting is a protected cultural asset, prioritising its preservation as part of the intangible heritage (Carrillo Donaire, 2015).

3 Many bullfights take place in public spaces including streets and in the countryside.

4 This figure does not include the 70,000 € subsidy to the firm organising the corridas in order to avoid double accounting.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología: [Grant Number CICYT-ECO2016-75805-R]; Diputación de Badajoz: [Grant Number 2018/18].