Sydney's global meetings sector ranked in Top 20
As the NSW Government moves to further ease COVID-19 restrictions, the Sydney business tourism sector is preparing to start welcoming visitors back to the city and is well placed to do so when borders reopen.
Sydney has just achieved a top 20 ranking for global business meetings and has once again been named the number one destination for the Australian market, according to new research.
The latest report by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), which examines the global association meetings market, found that Sydney ranked 20th within the global business meetings market, with 93 association meetings held in 2019.
This result continues the city’s upward trend from 25th for 2018. Within Asia-Pacific, Sydney ranked 6th, up from 8th for 2018, achieving its highest position in the region since 2013.
Globally, Australia moved up one spot to 12th for 2019 with a total of 272 international association meetings for 2019.
The business events sector is a quiet achiever of the Australian economy, growing at 6 per cent annually since 2014. In FY19 it directly generated over $35 billion in economic activity and employed over 229,000 people across a range of sectors and trades [1].
BESydney is working through a three-phased response to COVID-19, and has moved from ‘Crisis’ to now focus on ‘Recovery’ and the ‘New Normality’. BESydney CEO Lyn Lewis-Smith said: “Whilst the timing and format of these meetings may change over time, it’s fantastic to see Sydney still winning meetings and to know that the world is looking forward to coming back together.
“It won’t be business as normal, but rather business in our new normality.”
Speaking on the ICCA result, Ms. Lewis-Smith said: “This is a highly pleasing result for the Sydney business meetings sector. This result provides further optimism for the future and empathises the importance of our role in helping facilitate the recovery of our industry through the ongoing successful attraction of global meetings and incentives to Sydney.”
Bringing leading global minds and innovation to Sydney, Ms Lewis-Smith revealed that the meetings secured for the city span a host of future industries such as space research, forensics, geo-engineering and neurology, with a focus on attracting investment and talent aligned to the NSW Government strategy.
[1] Value of Business Events to Australia 2018/19, Ernst & Young, March 2020
