With less than a month to go until England take on Fiji at Twickenham in the 2015 Rugby World Cup curtain-raiser, an economic study has found that the tournament is set to generate nearly £1bn for the transport and tourism industry.

As the UK prepares to host 20 teams, around 440,000 international visitors and more than 2.2m Brits in 11 cities, the impact on the local economies will be huge according to findings from travel search engine GoEuro. The firm’s research suggests the Rugby World Cup will be the biggest generator of tourism since the 2012 London Olympics.

The figures follow statistics from the government which indicated the tournament will create 12,000 new jobs and provide the UK economy with an overall £2.2bn boost.

With its close proximity to Twickenham – which will host the World Cup final on Halloween – London is forecast to be the biggest winner overall, with 17 matches earning the city nearly £200m. Of this figure, GoEuro researchers say there will be £15.4m extra spent on transport as spectators descend on the capital.

The 11 host cities are expected to generate between £3,524,934.50 and £197,024,316.33 in terms of money spent on inner-city transport, accommodation, food and beverages. This is based on the number of expected visiting spectators and the number of games being hosted. For the tourism and industry as a whole, the cup is expected to generate a whopping £957,429,314.07.

GoEuro’s research focused on transport, accommodation and miscellaneous costs and did not take the cost of tickets into account. The methodology behind it involved making an average of tourist expenditure by nationality of visitors (using VisitBritain and UNWTO statistics) along with GoEuro’s price indexes.