Australia
Booming Brisbane
he best way of describing
Brisbane’s event evolution
in recent times is through
statistics. According to the
latest Tourism Research Australia data,
in the year to 30 June 2019, Brisbane
welcomed a record 1.4m international
visitors (up 3.4%) who spent a record
A$2.8bn (up 7.4%).
Top international visitor markets for
Brisbane are China (258,000), New
Zealand (230,000), UK (126,000) and
USA (103,000).
Brisbane is also investing hard in its
events infrastructure with 32 new hotel
developments adding 5,000 rooms to the
market since 2014. Twenty of these
hotels were 4- and 5-star.
A major project has been the
development at Howard Smith Wharves,
completed in November 2018. The
A$200m restoration of the
heritage-listed wharves has resulted in a
vibrant events and entertainment
precinct housing conference and
exhibition spaces.
The Fortitude Music Hall opened in
July 2019 as the largest theatre style
venue in Australia, with a 1,100 seated
capacity.
Brisbane Airport continues to
upgrade and a A$3.8bn investment
includes a New Parallel Runway set for
completion in 2020. It will bring the
airport’s capacity on to a par with Hong
Kong and Singapore. There are new
Qantas services from Chicago and San
Francisco planned for 2020 and a Virgin
Australia service from Tokyo. Brisbane
also welcomed the first direct AirAsia
flights from Bangkok in June 2019, while
airlift from China continues to grow.
The A$3bn 26-hectare integrated
resort, Queen’s Wharf, is set to open in
2022. It will feature five-and six-star
hotels and meeting spaces.
A robust Brisbane business events
sector is now generating A$250m for the
city’s economy every year and Brisbane
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CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD
Marketing and its partners have secured
business events worth A$112m in
economic impact through to 2026.
Grant impact
A key strategy for Brisbane Marketing
has been the Lord Mayor’s Convention
Trailblazer Grant programme, which
funds emerging researchers and
industry professionals to attend
international conferences and to
advocate for them to be held in Brisbane
in the future.
Dr Christina Schroeder and Dr Johan
Rosengren from the University of
Queensland used the grant to attend the
2018 International Peptide Symposium
in Tokyo. They then spearheaded a
successful bid for Brisbane to host the
event for 2021. Clinical Director of
not-for-profit Hear and Say, Emma
Rushbrooke also worked with Brisbane
Marketing to secure the AG Bell Global
Listening and Spoken Language
Symposium for Brisbane in 2021, after
using the grant to attend the 2018 event
in the United States.
Recent examples of major
international conferences held include
the International Tropical Agriculture
Conference at Brisbane Convention &
Exhibition Centre (BCEC), 11–13
November 2019. Over 800 delegates
from 43 countries attended TROPAG
2019, reflecting The University of
Queensland’s leading reputation in the
agricultural space.
Organising Committee Chair of the
International Symposium on Dental
Hygiene (ISDH) in Brisbane, Roisin
McGrath, said an appealing location and
a packed programme had led to a
delegate turnout above projections
(1,100) for ISDH 2019 last August.
Brisbane Marketing’s Business Events
team also helped 250 delegates to
purchase go Event travel cards, granting
them unlimited use of Brisbane’s public
transport system at a discounted rate.
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ISSUE 104
Key international
business events
for 2020:
• Intelligent
Transport Systems
(ITS) Asia Pacific
Forum &
Exhibition, May
2020 – (800 pax)
• Asia-Pacific
Ministerial
Conference on
Disaster Risk
Reduction
(APMCDRR), June
2020 (2,500 pax)
• 23rd International
Congress on the
Education of the
Deaf (ICED 2020),
6-9 July 2020
(1,000 pax)
• Flight Centre
Global Gathering,
July 2020 (4,000
pax)
• International
Pediatric Sleep
Association
Congress (IPSA)
and Sleep
DownUnder,
October 2020
(1,000 pax)
Cairns
expansion
The Cairns Convention Centre
expansion gets underway in June 2020
and, when complete in 2022, will be
able to host larger conferences via
3,000sqm of additional space.
The Centre has been twice named
winner of the World’s Best Congress
Centre (2004 and 2014) and this year
gets a new tropical entrance, a third
floor and a rooftop terrace.
The improvements will mean the
centre will be able to host up to three
large conferences at one time. The
project is expected to return up to
A$50m in additional delegate spend
per year.
Upcoming international events at
Cairns Convention Centre in 2021
include the 12th Congress of
International Society for Autonomic
Neuroscience and the Congress of
International Plant Molecular Biology.
In 2022 the International Congress
of Vertebrate Morphology also comes
to town.
There are 8,000 hotel rooms within
the city and tours depart daily from the
city to visit the World Heritage listed
Great Barrier Reef or Wet Tropics
Rainforest.