Oz industry on road to recovery

The Australian business events industry has “broadly recovered” from the impacts of the global financial crisis following continued growth in all visitor segments, new research shows.

New findings by Tourism Research Australia (TRA) show that total business events visitor expenditure rose 19% in the 12 months ending March 2011 to $10 billion. Domestic daily expenditure increased by 28% on 2010 levels, with overnight expenditure growing 19%. International business events visitor spend increased by 15%, representing growth in all visitor segments.

While previous data has confirmed that business events spending has flagged below pre-financial crisis levels of 2008, the latest findings confirm the sector is on its way to recovery.

“Key indicators for the sector have exceeded the pre-GFC levels of 2008 in most areas,” said an accompanying report by the TRA. “This shows that the sector has broadly recovered from the impacts of the GFC.”

With major investment projects currently underway and renewed focus on the Asian market, the TRA also forecasts future growth.

“With leisure tourism setting the goal to double visitor expenditure by 2020, the business events sector believes it has even greater potential and has set its targets at a conservative doubling of delegate visitor expenditure to $16 billion by 2020,” the TRA report said.

New developments in Perth and Brisbane would also increase the capacity of the business events sector and help it to achieve its 2020 targets, the report added.