THE world’s premier destinations are battling to secure world-class events that deliver valuable tourism outcomes, with a focus on the growing number of lucrative business events and the associated contingents of high-yield visitors.
THE world’s premier destinations are battling to secure world-class events that deliver valuable tourism outcomes, with a focus on the growing number of lucrative business events and the associated contingents of high-yield visitors.
Amid jostling for a slice of the global business events pie, which include domestic and international conferences, incentive groups and corporate meetings, local events marketing groups are harnessing the state’s strengths, such as world-leading medical science and technology endeavours, to secure these valuable events.
The Perth Convention Bureau, the body responsible for marketing Western Australia as a destination for business events since 1972, secured 88 new business events in the last fiscal year worth an estimated $66.6 million to the local economy.
Speaking at the recent WA Business News roundtable, PCB managing director Christine McLean said her organisation was continually chasing business, and that while there were opportunities, the state’s ability to deliver as a destination was a vital part of the equation.
“We know the industry globally is growing, we know it’s resilient in a crisis and we know they are high spenders,” Ms McLean said.
“They have a higher expectation than a leisure tourist and we need to be able to deliver in terms of infrastructure and in terms of service.”
Despite the challenges of intermittent accommodation shortfalls, a strong Australian dollar and healthy competition from cashed-up overseas markets that are slashing airfare and room rates to drive business, PCB’s efforts to secure business events for WA is paying off.
“Our target this year is a 27 per cent increase over last year’s target,” Ms McLean said.
“Last year was $64 million worth of business, this year our target is $81 million and in two years’ time it’ll be at $107 million.”
But this global competition for events, especially from destinations in Asia and to a lesser extent the Middle East and Europe, has forced business event marketers to sharpen their pencils.
“We can’t compete with destinations in Asia and the Middle East, who are putting a million dollars on the table every time we put a bid against them,” Ms McLean said.
“What we do in our industry is focus on our strengths of WA.
“So if were bidding for the World Burn Conference we’d use Fiona Wood, where we’ve got world expertise, that’s what we focus on.”
A string of significant medical conferences contributed to PCB’s scorecard of conference bid wins this year, attracting an estimated 35,500 delegates to WA over the next four years.
Ms McLean is adamant the number of conferences around the world is increasing because breakthroughs, particularly in the fields of medical science and technology, are occurring faster and more often.
“So for a world organisation that might have a conference every three or four years, they are reducing it to every one or two years but the delegate numbers at those conferences is smaller,” she said.
“Asia is a massive opportunity for us to attract conferences.
“We know the world organisations are regionalising and that’s why the Asian region is the fastest growing, they’re becoming Asia Pacific conferences of the world organisations.”
Ms McLean said the state government had provided additional funding during the past two years to attract large conferences, typically those with more than 900 delegates, but the recent removal of restrictions to PCB’s bidding strategies meant the bureau could target small to medium sized conferences, which were growing in number and economic impact.
“What we’ve done with Tourism WA, to respond to the economic crisis, is to remove the restrictions on that funding so we can target any range of conferences,” she said.
Tourism WA chief executive, Richard Muirhead said the decision would allow the PCB added flexibility to attract business events in a climate of fierce competition.
“The industry as a whole will benefit from increasing our market share of smaller but highly valuable business events,” he said.
However the challenge of balancing large numbers of visitor numbers with sustainable infrastructure is not going away, as highlighted by issues surrounding accommodation supply and long-term bookings for hoteliers, and ongoing problems at Perth Airport and in the state’s taxi industry.
Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships event director and tourism industry veteran, John Longley, expects to be criticized when his event starts in December 2011.
“Being one of the most isolated cities in the world we have these enormous swings and roundabouts,” Mr Longley said.
“We are really going to struggle with the accommodation if the event ends up being as big as we anticipate to be ... at over 10,000 people for about a month.”
Nonetheless, Mr Longley emphasised that events help secure long-term bookings for hoteliers and potentially add vibrancy to the cities and regions that host them.
Esplanade Hotels Group owner and managing director Marylyn New is presently worried about the longevity of her business, highlighted by a lack of forward bookings for the upcoming summer tourist season.
And although she sees some advantages for her business by bringing events to WA, she realises the need to carefully plan the development of accommodation facilities to cater to tourists attending these events.
“While it’s wonderful having events ... you’ve got to be real about this because infrastructure for a month is not worth it for five years just sitting there,” she said.
