43. Assessing the feasibility of a major new tourist attraction for Swansea.

Skyline Enterprises is a New Zealand-based company that provides outdoor tourist attractions. The company was interested in exploring the potential of a new attraction in Swansea, Wales. The attraction would include an 8-seater gondola, four different luge tracks, a mountain biking park, and a three-line zipline. Kada Research was commissioned to provide an economic impact assessment of the proposed facility and assess its viability.

We found that the Skyline attraction should bring significant economic benefits to the area, including construction and tourism jobs, increased tourism expenditure and wider benefits. The economic model was independently scrutinised internally (by Stantec Limited) and externally by Welsh Government economists.  This ensured the assumptions were extremely robust and defendable.  The scenario testing for this assignment was very thorough.  We looked at the potential impact of reduced visitor numbers, increased costs and exceptional ground conditions. At the Welsh level, the model stood up well to fairly pessimistic scenarios.

Karl and his team at Kada were extremely diligent in their analysis of our projections and provided great counter arguments. We envisioned difficulty due to the time difference between New Zealand and the UK, however Karl was willing to receive calls outside of typical working hours so made the entire process very easy. It was a pleasure working with Karl and we’d definitely use him again for future work.

-Danny Luke (General Manager – International Luge Development).

Get in touch: If you are thinking about an impact assessment or feasibility study of a project or programme you are involved with, e-mail karl.dalgleish@kadaresearch.co.uk and he will respond within 24 hours.