Adelaide Convention Bureau: Back to business on the back of a bumper year

The Adelaide Convention Bureau has released results of a massively successful 2014 that will see a record $144.2m added to the state’s visitor economy. This figure puts the ROI to the State Government at 180:1 and sees the city hotels filled with almost 162,000 bed nights secured.

“These events, in selecting Adelaide as their host city create around 1,400 jobs – from the businesses supplying the food to the conference delegates at their convention venues and local restaurants to the commercial laundries, the waiters, taxi drivers, and audio visual company employees” said Damien Kitto CEO, Adelaide Convention Bureau.

“Significantly too, they contribute immensely to organisations and businesses related to the conference industry genre with the investment, networking and development opportunities created by hosting an event in one’s home town being priceless” he said.

2014 started relatively on par with $49.5m worth of bids tendered and won by the Bureau for South Australia (often in conjunction with its Team Adelaide partners) to the end of the financial year. However, a massive second half of the year was realised with bid wins valued at $94.7m that bought the yearend total to $144.2m.

As the important $350m redevelopment of the Adelaide Convention Centre nears completion of stage 1, securing these events by the Bureau is welcome news for the city. In years gone by Adelaide has not been able to compete for such events due to CBD venue capacity and bid funding constraints.

Some significant wins (worth $53.6m) for Adelaide in the last quarter especially saw the Bureau achieve its most successful year to date. The victory bell was sounded at the Bureau’s Leigh Street offices many times in the October-December period as the results from bid submissions – often years in the making, were announced. These included:

- International Council on Systems Engineering International Symposium 2017: 750 delegates, 4,330 room nights, 44 jobs created. $4,690,296 economic benefit
- Australian Veterinary Association Conference 2016: 750 delegates, 4,018 room nights, 38 jobs created, $4,471,661 economic benefit
- APPEA National Conference & Exhibition 2018: 2,000 delegates, 5,915 room nights, 84 jobs created, $9,400,000 economic benefit
- International Astronautical Congress 2017: 3,000 delegates, 22,436 room nights, 170 jobs created, $18,651,950 economic benefit
- AMP Financial Services Conference 2016: 1,400 delegates, 5,826 room nights, 48 jobs created, $5,458,233 economic benefit.

sourced:traveldailynews.asia