The occurrence of the core-hole effect at the Al-K and Al-L1 edge in alpha-Al2O3 was studied by comparing experimental electron energy-loss near-edge structures (ELNES) and results of band-structure calculations with and without accounting for core-hole effects by the Z + 1 approximation. It was found that the theoretically calculated unoccupied p-like projected densities of states (PDOS) without Z + 1 approximation matches better to the experimental Al-L1 ELNES, whereas the PDOS with Z + 1 approximation matches better to the experimental Al-K ELNES. We conclude that the localisation of the initial state is an important prerequisite for the observability of the core-hole effect in the ELNES.