Edinburgh aims to fight back in battle for major conference trade

Published on Wednesday 2 May 2007 00:15

EDINBURGH'S hard-won position in the top league of global conference destinations is under threat, according to newly published figures from the Netherlands-based International Congress & Conference Bureau (ICCB).

The data shows Edinburgh, which in 2002 ranked ninth in the world for attracting business gatherings, slipping further last year from 23rd to 27th.

In response, the public-private marketing body, the Edinburgh Convention Bureau (ECB), has commissioned an urgent "audit" of the capital's attractions as a conference-magnet, reviewing what it can offer high-spending business delegates, how these facilities are currently being used, and where the demand for future expansion is likely to come.

For a city of only 400,000 people, Edinburgh is acknowledged as punching above its weight in terms of conference facilities - and business tourism is estimated to bring more than 300 million into the city. The city centre contains around 65 meeting venues, the 1,200-capacity EICC being the largest, though others include Dynamic Earth, the Edinburgh Corn Exchange, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons and the Royal Museum of Scotland.

But the city's strategy, based around its capacity to hold three major simultaneous conferences, received a serious blow earlier this month when the joint venture behind a scheme for extension to the EICC stopped work on the project, citing "rising building costs". At best, the cessation will delay the project by around 18 months. "It's a major disaster but we hope a temporary one," says one businessman close to the project, raising the prospect that it could be put on ice indefinitely.

Other short-term problems are loss of capacity resulting from major refurbishments of the National Museum of Scotland and the Assembly Rooms.

According to the ICCB, fast- rising rivals to Edinburgh include Prague (up from 14th to eighth), Budapest (up to sixth from eighth), and Kuala Lumpur, up from 30th to 15th. London, the only UK city ahead of Edinburgh, managed to inch ahead from 13th to 11th, while Glasgow dropped from 36th to 40th. Vienna retains its place as the world's No 1 tourist destination.

Sue Stuart, chief executive of the ECB, said: "These figures are less of a nasty shock for Edinburgh than they might have been. We have been aware of the rapid growth in competition whose year-on-year growth is making it increasingly difficult for us to maintain our position.

"The good news is that we are witnessing a great expansion of bedroom space as more hotels come on stream, but we still have the problem that we cannot run the big meetings concurrently, and provide plenary space and banqueting facilities."

Last year, ECB carried out an international comparison between Edinburgh and its main competitors, raising the possibility that Edinburgh could be heading in the wrong direction. The report called for the city to maximise its marketing potential, a proposal enthusiastically backed by Ron Hewitt, chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce.

"You have to acknowledge that for a small-scale city such as ours to be playing in this league is a major achievement. There are 1,000 cities in Europe, many of them far bigger, vying for this lucrative market.

"The ICCB report is a reminder that we cannot rest on our laurels, we need more of a sense of urgency and commitment to growing our market share. That means pulling together or use marketing organisations to create an overwhelmingly powerful brand clearly differentiated for world markets."

Also included in the ECB's review will be the viability of the transport infrastructure and routes in and out of the city such as the EARL, which the ECB supports but which the SNP, predicted to emerge from tomorrow's Scottish Parliamentary election as the largest party, is pledged to cancel.

Said Stuart: "We are looking closely at access issues, links to the airport, linkages to Glasgow. Other cities, for example in Germany and Switzerland, run special 'delegate trains' in between their big cities, which are specially equipped to cater for conferees, and there is no reason that kind of enhanced connectivity can't happen here."

Fighting talk, but can Edinburgh, which will never be able to absorb the numbers of the world's mega-cities, ever realistically aspire to climb to the ICCB's upper echelons? The top ten is probably never going to be in the city's grasp, though the ECB thinks that Edinburgh's flying start in terms of reputation and unique cultural assets mean that the top 20 is eminently achievable, not least because the advantages that rival cities enjoy are ones that it is possible to emulate; notably higher levels of public-sector support.

If Edinburgh can continue to make its case for the vital significance of this high-value market to achieving national growth goals, that shortfall might be made up.