AUSTRALASIA – Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk is predicting a surge in delegate numbers for two international conferences to hit the city this month.
The first, the RCOG World Congress 2015 – a joint event being co-hosted by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) – begins 12 April.
Additionally, the 40th IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) 2015, starts on 19 April.
“Both ICASSP and the RCOG / RANZCOG Event are expected to attract a combined number of more than 3,900 delegates and conference exhibitors to Brisbane,” the Lord Mayor said. The number, if achieved, will exceed the combined target of 3,000 for both events.
The RCOG / RANZCOG event will welcome delegates from 47 countries, while 90% of ICASSP’s delegates are arriving from overseas.
“These conferences will generate a combined economic impact of nearly AUD$12m (US$9.22m) for Brisbane, which is great news for our hotels, restaurants, venues and retailers,” the Lord Mayor added.
He noted business events in Brisbane were high-yield, with delegates spending on average five times more than the average international visitor and 46% of them participate in pre- and post-event tourism.
The Brisbane Convention Bureau had worked closely with the conference organisers to grow the number of delegates.
The bureau offered a suite of in-kind destination marketing support, including assistance promoting Brisbane, pre-and-post event touring information, welcome signage at Brisbane Airport, onsite tourist information at both events and Airtrain travel discounts to assist delegate travel into the city.
The Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre is hosting both events and GM Bob O’Keeffe said the economic, knowledge sharing, investment and tourism benefits of hosting such events present enormous value to Brisbane and Queensland.
“BCEC works with local experts and organisations such as RANZCOG and the IEEE Queensland community to win these large bids for Australia and to ensure that it is Brisbane that reaps the benefits.”
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