ODUNDE Festival – Economic Impact Study

Econsult Solutions, Inc. (ESI) was contracted by ODUNDE Inc. to quantify the economic impact that the ODUNDE Festival has on both the City of Philadelphia as well as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The ODUNDE Festival celebrates the diversified African and African-American culture in the city of Philadelphia. ODUNDE is the largest African-American street festival in the United States and also the country’s longest-running African-American street festival, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. With up to 500,000 attendees patronizing local restaurants, hotels and vendors, the ODUNDE Festival stimulates economic activity for local businesses and revenue impacts for the city and the commonwealth.

ESI estimated that the spending associated with the ODUNDE Festival has an aggregate economic impact of $28 million within Philadelphia and supports 345 jobs with $12.5 million in earnings. The impact to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania is even higher with a total economic impact of $30.6 million and support of 380 jobs with $13.3 million in earnings.

This economic activity is also modeled to produce $480,000 in tax revenue for Philadelphia and $740,000 for Pennsylvania.

Further, the festival serves as a centerpiece of a weeklong series of events that build economic and cultural ties between Philadelphia and Africa, including roundtables with civic leaders on business and tourism. Above and beyond the direct expenditure impacts of the festival, by attracting out-of-market visitors to the region and building global business and cultural ties, ODUNDE has long-term reputation impacts for the Philadelphia region.

ESI will work with ODUNDE at the 2015 festival to gather survey data from attendees to develop a deeper understanding of the profile of festival visitors and refine this impact analysis in future years.

To download and read the report in its entirety, click the link to the right.

For more on this study, click here.

For more on ODUNDE, click here.