A RECENT study by the Melbourne Convention Bureau (MCB) on international association conferences held in the destination has found that medical and health conferences are the most lucrative for Victoria state in terms of organiser spend and daily delegate expenditure.
In the 2014/15 financial year, medical and health association conferences in Melbourne brought in more than 63 per cent of the total A$212.7 million (US$155) economic contribution to Victoria. The 20th International AIDS Conference in July 2014 attracted more than 11,700 delegates, and was a significant contributor.
According to ICCA, Melbourne hosts an average of 41 per cent of all medical and science conferences in Australia.
This supports MCB’s continued focus on attracting large international health and medical conferences to Melbourne.
The Melbourne Conference Expenditure Study 2015 also reported that international association conferences are supporting a broader range of businesses than once thought.
“Each international association conference delivers an average A$4.9 million to the Victorian economy from conference organiser spend, based on our most recent survey of nine international association conferences,” said MCB CEO Karen Bolinger.
“This is ‘new money’ that would not have come into Victoria had these conferences not been hosted here and is spent on businesses that supply a diverse range of services including venue hire, catering, printing, exhibition set up, audiovisual, training, marketing, financial, legal and accounting.”
International conferences also see a delegate expenditure of more than A$5,500 per person per trip.
Melbourne hosted 33 international association conferences in last financial year, and these supported more than 2,550 jobs.
Bolinger pointed out that MCB draws an average of 190 business events annually to Melbourne, 17 per cent of which are international association conferences. These conferences deliver 57 per cent of the total economic value of business events over a typical 12 month period.
“Our new research adds conference organiser spend into the mix to paint a compelling picture of the broader importance of international association conferences to a wide range of businesses that may not be directly connected with the event industry, and that’s great news for the economy,” Bolinger said.
