Sydney will welcome an extra 46,210 international conference delegates at events worth almost $145 million following a solid annual result announced today (August 11) by the Sydney Convention and Visitors Bureau (SCVB).
In the year ending June 30, 2008, the SCVB won bids for 37 international conferences, incentives and other business events to be held in Sydney before 2015.
The result represents a solid increase on the 30 events secured the previous year, worth just over $100 million and 24,960 delegates.
SCVB managing director, Jon Hutchison, said the bureau had increased its bid success rate to 71 per cent in the period.
“The SCVB’s success rate is consistently high and demonstrates both the strength of the Sydney brand and the strategic approach we take when securing events for our city,” he said.
“Sydney undoubtedly remains one of the world’s most desirable cities and this is reflected in surveys around the world. Sydney also remains Australia’s leading conference city and one of the Asia-Pacific region’s most important meeting centres.”
Among the events secured are 10 events from Asia that will contribute $29 million to the economy, and 12 large-scale events for 1000 delegates or more. The largest is the World Conference on Lung Cancer for 8000 delegates in 2013, worth $19.2 million.
Other major events include the Asia Pacific Life Insurance Congress (8000 delegates, worth $15.6m), the 2010 Golden Oldies Rugby Festival (6000, $11.8 million), the 2007 Bayer Schering Pharmaceutical Annual Conference (2200, $13.2 million) and the 2010 Annual World Congress of the Human Proteome Organisation (2000, $10.1 million).
