ABSTRACT
It has already been seen that conference tourism is a segment of business tourism, itself a sector within the overall tourism industry comprising both business and leisure tourism. (The author has considerable sympathy with the view that conferences and conventions should not only be positioned as part of the tourism industry but should also be recognized as integral to a country’s trade and economic development sectors.) All projections by economists confirm that the tourism industry was set to become the world’s largest industry by the millennium or in this first decade thereafter. Figures issued by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in January 2007 show that world tourism grew by 4.5 per cent in 2006 compared with the previous year, and international tourist arrivals reached 842 million, the highest ever. The UNWTO reports that destinations worldwide generated 100 million additional international tourist arrivals between 2002 and 2005. Further details at www.worldtourism.org/newsroom. In Australia visitor arrivals totalled 5.2 million during 2004, an
increase of 10 per cent on the 2003 figures. Tourism accounts for 5.7 per cent of total employment, contributing AU$73 billion to consumption spend per annum. It is worth more than 11 per cent of total exports. Figures published by VisitBritain (the British national tourism
organization) put the total value of tourism to the United Kingdom in 2005 at approximately £74 billion, supporting around 2.1 million jobs, some 8 per cent of total UK employment. This compares with a value of £40 billion in 1996 when the industry supported 1.7 million jobs, an employment growth approaching 25 per cent. (www.visitbritain.com)
Within the United Kingdom, estimates suggest that business tourism (business/corporate travel and conferences/exhibitions/ incentives), worth in excess of £22 billion a year, accounts for between one-third and a quarter of the total value of tourism. Some £10.3 billion of business tourism revenues were contributed by the conference and meetings sector in 2005, according to the ‘British Conference Venues Survey 2006’. If it were possible to produce aggregated figures for the conference industry on a global scale, the totals would certainly reach hundreds of billions of pounds. There are a number of research projects now underway which
help to build a more accurate and comprehensive picture of the size and value of the conference industry. This chapter will draw on these and on other sources, using material from Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, Spain, the UK and the USA, to illustrate and emphasize that the conference industry is a major benefactor to both local and national economies, as a job creator and sustainer, as an income generator, and as a vehicle for attracting inward investment.
