I was prompted to write to WA Business News by Tim Treadgold’s Briefcase article on August 10 about the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre.
I was prompted to write to WA Business News by Tim Treadgold’s Briefcase article on August 10 about the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre.
I am the person generally regarded as being responsible for the initial development of the convention centre.
I am a former chairman of the Perth Convention Bureau, national and state president of the Meetings Industry Association and have run my own business in convention and exhibition organising for the past 20 years.
Mr Treadgold, like most of his media colleagues, politicians and government administrators, demonstrates the collective ignorance and negative outlooks that have plagued the PCEC since its inception.
The fact that every capital city and major regional centre in Australia and every major city within five hours’ travel of Perth has a convention centre appears not to have registered with this group of knockers. Maybe, just maybe, convention centres are of value and that it is not the centre that should be termed a white elephant, but those responsible for its operation and management.
The media so often refers to Perth as ‘Dullsville’, but it’s not the city that’s dull, it’s the politicians and administrators who must accept that description.
If we had more people at the top with the passion and vision of our lord mayor, we may be better off.
That dull outlook and lack of vision has been responsible for Western Australia losing major events such as Rally Australia, and the Heineken Classic Golf.
Even the wonderful film, Rabbit Proof Fence, about Western Australia, was not supported locally and went to another state to reap the profits and exposure.
Make no mistake, convention centres can be successful and profitable, and most of them are.
Convention centres in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra have all been extended since they were first opened because they have been so successful.
The International Conference and Convention Association has several times voted the Cairns Convention Centre as one of the best in the world. Why? Because it has the total support of the Queensland government, industry and local people.
It also has managers with vision.
In the 1980s, I was travelling widely in my job as the world secretary general for cartography and had the opportunity to visit most of the world’s major convention centres, including some in developing countries.
All testified to the huge input of dollars from conventions, averaging $600 to $800 per day expenditure per delegate in the cities where they were held. A particular one of relevance to Perth was in the city of Bournemouth on the south coast of England.
The city was dying and dull until a passionate mayor had a convention centre built. Within two years, everything was transformed and it was so successful that a second centre was built within five years. The mayor offered to come to Perth and talk with the government but this offer was ignored.
I began a push to try and get some interest in Perth but was up against a dead end Labor government, local hotels and even the Perth Convention Bureau. I persevered and found Richard Court and Bill Hassell (in opposition) receptive and they pro-mised to investigate when in power.
This they did and feasibility studies carried out vindicated what I had been saying and led to the decision to go ahead. Unfortunately, the Court government was replaced and this current government has been part of the problem.
It was never supportive of the concept and went ahead very reluctantly, never trying to counter the negative comments that regularly appeared from the media.
It appeared to me and others that we had the chance to get the best centre in Australia, as we thought the architects would look at all the other centres around Australia and would model it on the best, such as Cairns and Brisbane.
Sadly this did not occur and I have to say that we probably have the worst one in Australia. My original concept, which was supported by the city council at the time, was to redevelop the Perth Concert Hall as the convention centre and in time build over the car park to the south and eventually have a concert hall on the river, in keeping with many in Europe.
The original consultants agreed with this idea, but it was never considered. The development of the concert hall could have been completed for less than $50 million.
Mr Treadgold’s views on Tourism WA are equally bizarre. Tourism sits behind resources and agriculture as the major income earners for the state, yet successive governments have appointed junior or low-profile ministers to the position who have done little or nothing to advance tourism throughout the state.
I agree, there have been some inane and wasteful schemes to promote tourism but, like the PCEC, they have been on the wrong track.
For an industry to survive, governments need to create an environment for it to succeed, as has been done with resources and agriculture. Tourism has been totally neglected. As a comparison, look at Queensland and the Gold Coast – popular all around the world. What have they got that we don’t have in Perth?
We have superior beaches, as good as any in the world. We have national parks of world standing, wildlife and wildflowers without equal anywhere and a climate to die for, so why aren’t we doing better?
The simple reason is because in Queensland, from the government down, they believe they are the best and every person sells that message. In WA, we spend our time criticising what we do have, such as the Bell Tower. What is the Eiffel Tower? It is a tower that people climb to take photos. Does it give them a longer life or make them feel better? Of course not. It has only become an icon over time so why not let the Bell Tower develop.
We have to acknowledge that the convention centre is not a good building. But delegates do not come because of the building. After all, we had lots of conventions in Perth before we had a convention centre.
We need to bite the bullet and decide to make the convention centre do what it was built for, to attract major international conventions to Perth.
To do that the government has to provide marketing dollars and the expertise. It also has to appoint somebody with the skills to do this, preferably from outside the state who hasn’t been tainted with the negative atmosphere already associated with the PCEC; and they must be independent of governments. After all, it shouldn’t be too hard to find out why Cairns and the Gold Coast have been so successful.
However, the first step requires the media and government to get positive and take action immediately to correct this situation, and believe in what we have.
• Don Pearce is managing director
Promaco Conventions Pty Ltd
