Delegates do the business as big spenders earn city £73m

Published on Saturday 17 May 2008 10:33

Money talks DELEGATES coming to Edinburgh to attend business conferences last year made £4 million more for the city's economy than in the previous year.

Figures from the Edinburgh Convention Bureau (ECB), the body set up to attract business tourism to the Capital, showed that spending by delegates was worth 72.8 million in 2007, compared with 68.5m the year before.

A renewed focus by the ECB on attracting larger events meant the number of delegates coming to the Capital increased by 2000 to 65,000, despite the number of conferences being three short of the 162 hosted in 2006.

Business and tourism leaders welcomed the latest figures, which come against a backdrop of an economic downturn and lower consumer spending.

Sue Stuart, chief executive of the ECB, said the performance exceeded the 71.7m target it had set last year.

"These results reflect a superb effort by everyone involved in marketing Edinburgh as a world-class conference destination," she said.

"We operate in a highly- competitive marketplace with more and more cities around the world realising and wanting a share of a highly-lucrative and fast-growing business.

"Edinburgh is currently undergoing a period of transition, upgrading its infrastructure and facilities while assessing how best to promote itself globally in order to maintain its position as a global destination.

"Much remains to be done, but the benefits will be enormous for the city and Scotland."

The latest figures by the International Congress & Convention Association showed that Edinburgh held 41 large-scale international conferences last year, compared with 46 in 2006.

Although the Capital remained second behind London in the UK, it slid nine places to 36th in the global rankings.

But it has benefited from its reputation in genetics, bioscience, medicine, electronic engineering and computing, and is now one of the pharmaceutical industry's top meeting destinations.

Among the conferences planned this year are the British Educational Research Institute, which is expected to be worth 1.8m, and the Society of General Microbiology, worth 737,000.

A spokeswoman for VisitScotland said: "Business tourism is worth 911m to the Scottish economy annually.

"One of the big advantages of it is that it acts as a shop window for future leisure tourists.

"Business tourists also spend more than leisure tourists, so if it is possible to extend their stay, that can bring in extra revenue."