By James Wells
NSW Premier Nathan Rees and Business Events Sydney (BE Sydney) has announced Sydney has been selected as the venue for the 2011 Amway conference, which is expected to deliver over $60 million to the city’s economy.
Speaking at the TTF Outlook 09 conference at the Shangri-La Hotel today (May 5), Premier Rees said the conference will attract between 12,000 and 15,000 delegates and represents a commitment to tourism that he hopes will be “resilient in the face of a recession”.
“Sydney has been selected to host this major conference which will help the shops, restaurants and tourist destinations,” he said.
Premier Rees also recognised a decline of inbound and domestic tourism of approximately four per cent and said there was “a need to energetically market New South Wales”.
“Every new event brings significant spend per visitor and we also see wider benefits with the creation of jobs and new trade opportunities. In this global financial climate, the events industry is performing particularly well, delivering high yields and contributing important consumer spend,” Rees said.
In the current financial year, BESydney has won 41 events attracting over 200,000 delegate days to Sydney and more than $176 million – doubling the result corresponding to the previous 12 months.
“BESydney works collaboratively with government and industry to make Sydney an attractive destination for business events,” said BESydney CEO, Jon Hutchison.
“This collaboration has seen BESydney build a solid pipeline of new business for 2010 and beyond, despite the economic downturn.”
2010 promises to be the biggest year ever for business events in Sydney, with 33 events already confirmed attracting 59,200 delegates and 299,550 delegate days valued at an estimated $224 million.
“The business events market is relatively resilient to short-term economic upheavals because large international conferences are planned years in advance,” Hutchison said.
“We believe that the business events industry remains well placed to weather the global financial crisis but it has become more important than ever that we face today’s challenges with carefully honed, long term strategies.”
The strategies involve targeting industries that are resilient to short-term upheavals and working with third parties to offer a better value proposition and maximising delegate experience in Sydney.
“The more events BESydney can win, the greater the economic impact for industry and the wider NSW community,” Hutchison said.
Contributing to the success of BESydney is a newly established partnership with Events NSW – a dedicated events body created by the NSW Government that aims to develop Sydney and NSW as a centre for public, sporting and business events.
The partnership is the result of a comprehensive review into events needs and infrastructure in NSW, to which BESydney actively contributes. It provides a fresh commercial framework for creating government and industry cooperation and sees business and political leaders unite behind a common vision for the city’s events sector.
The formalisation of the partnership with Events NSW has contributed to a string of major bid wins for Sydney, including the recent Amway win and the World Congress on Lung Cancer in 2013, which will attract more than 8,000 delegates and bring in $19 million.
