Award alchemy for Darwin Convention Centre

Darwin Convention Centre has won the Gold award in the category for Business Event Venues at the 2021 Australian Tourism Awards. This year the awards highlighted the achievements of tourism businesses throughout the Covid pandemic and the resilience of the tourism industry over the past two years. First established by the federal government in 1985, the Australian Tourism Awards they are owned and managed by Australian Awards Inc., on behalf of the tourism industry. From the thousands of tourism businesses entering their state and territory Tourism Awards, around 200 become finalists in the federal Awards. Peter Savoff, general manager of the Darwin Convention Centre expressed his delight in accepting the award at the ceremony held on 18 March at the Sunshine Coast. “It’s an incredible honour to represent the Northern Territory on the national stage as Best Business Event Venue in Australia. “This win continues to strengthen the Centre’s professional reputation and place the Darwin Convention Centre, and Darwin on the map as a competitive destination for Business Events on a national and international level – which is now more important than ever as the events industry across Australia begins to rebuild from the Covid pandemic.” Situated within the Darwin Waterfront Precinct, the Centre is able to host 1,200 delegate conferences and is managed by ASM Global. Harvey Lister AM, chairman and CEO of ASM’s APAC region said: “Despite conditions that disrupted major conventions across Australia, we worked closely with ASM Global Facilities Management to enable significant refurbishments to the Centre. And in periods of re-opening, where border and capacity restrictions were enforced, we were able to win the confidence of the local government health department by demonstrating its adoption of Venue Shield, ASM Global’s pro-active response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We also worked with business and the community to stage safe and vibrant local events contributing to the early recovery process.”