Tasmania’s Lord Mayor has applauded North Melbourne’s presence in Hobart, with figures showing the club’s two games last season injected around $2.11 million into the economy.

“The Hobart City Council has voted with our purse strings to support games here and the impact has been huge,” Damon Thomas told the Hobart Mercury.

“We’ve got a population that is terribly proud of the fact that we have provided a huge amount of talent into the AFL pool over the years.”

North’s match versus Sydney attracted 13,223 fans to Blundstone Arena while the clash against the Power pulled in another 10,625.

“The impact of AFL games is huge. The amount of stay-overs because of AFL games was very solid. That meant you could guarantee restaurants were full, taxis, shops, everyone has gained from it.”

Locals, intrastate and interstate travellers gave the Hobart economy a major uplift.

“We have financially supported games, together with the Hobart Chamber of Commerce, RACT and TT-Line.”

A report by North Melbourne for Tourism Tasmania outlined a return of more than double for the $500,000 a game investment. It also said of the 23,488 people mobilised by the games, 4900 came from interstate, stayed an average of 2.83 nights, spent an average of $213 a night and an average of $602 a visit.

A total 1025 day trips were taken by AFL “tourists” for a total spend of $91,000, and the higher attendance for the Swans game took $1.67 million.