Scaling Groups & Events

INTRODUCTION

IMPLAN is an annual, linear model. This means that analyzing $100 would yield the same Results as analyzing $1 and multiplying the results by 100. The scaling feature in IMPLAN allows you to set up Events and then adjust all the Events by this figure.

SCALING GROUPS

Scaling is especially fun when looking at a group of Events for a tourism impact. When analyzing tourism impacts, we have a list of expenditures usually by individual visitors. We can set this up as shown with one Event for each affected Industry. In this example, we are examining a basic visitor spending for a weekend with the Idaho Falls Chukars. We know that each visitor spends approximately $2,000 on a weekend trip across six spending categories.

If we are told there were 5,000 visitors, we could just multiply each Value by 5,000. However, we can also use scaling to tell IMPLAN to multiply each value by 5,000. Drag your Events into the Group. Then on the number 1 next to the Group name, type 5,000. This will multiply each Event by 5,000.

Our Results will show the impacts of $2,000 total spending for each of the 5,000 guests. Our Direct Output is therefore just shy of the $10M in total spending, due to the fact that we used one retail Industry and therefore margins were applied. For more information on this, check out the articles Margins & Deflators and Why don’t my Direct Effects match my Direct inputs?

SCALING EVENTS

Perhaps we are told that only 3,000 of the total 5,000 attendees used hotel rooms, transit, and airfare. We can scale each Event individually to reflect this new information. Ensure that the scaling on the entire Group is 1. Then click on the menu icon and select scaling.

Now you can edit the 1s that are located to the right of each Event in the Group. In our example, we enter 3,000 for Hotel, Transit, and Airfare, and 5,000 for Restaurant, Retail, and Sports.

This will then tell IMPLAN to multiply the first three Events by 3,000 and the last three Events by 5,000. We would expect a Direct Output of slightly less than $8.4M and we see $7.9M in our Results.