Punchestown Festival worth nearly €60m to economy

The Punchestown National Hunt Festival — Irish horse racing’s equivalent of the Cheltenham Festival — generated nearly €60m for the local economy last year, according to a study by NUI Maynooth.

Visitors to the five-day April meeting spent nearly €25m on accommodation, while female festival goers spent a combined €7m on attire for their visit — amounting to an average individual spend of €196 in the run-up to the event.

Some €21.4m was spent inside the racecourse last year — more than a quarter of visitors spent between €200 and €500 each.