Horizons of £782m sector expanding

Organisers have a growing choice of venues which can accommodate events of all sizes, finds Anna Dove

BUSINESS tourism is worth £782 million to the Scottish economy and with new venues opening and existing centres expanding across the country, Scotland, it seems, is one step ahead when it comes to landing major conferences.

“Business events can benefit all corners of Scotland, yearround,” says Judy Rae, head of events at Glasgow Science Centre and the Scottish Tourism Alliance lead on business tourism.

“It can be a large meeting in a city conference centre, a corporate think tank meeting involving exclusive use of a castle on Loch Ness or a team building escape in the Western Isles.

“Scotland has what it takes to create truly outstanding business events, based around the high quality and inspirational experiences that we can offer.”

Leaders from the country’s conference and events sector have reached out to Glasgow’s key business influencers, aiming to encourage them to be proactive in bringing business events to Scotland.

Strathclyde University’s stateof-the-art Technology and Innovation Centre is one of the latest additions to Glasgow’s extensive conference venue portfolio.

With its central location, the facility is a hub for world-leading research, enabling the close collaboration between academics, business, industry and the public sector.

The building, which opened in March, has increased Glasgow’s capacity with a number of options available to conference organisers looking to host their event in the city.

“We fill a gap in terms of the size of the venue,” says Gordon Hodge, head of conferencing and events at Strathclyde University.

“We are between a bespoke venue like a hotel and then something like the Science Centre or the National Museum of Scotland, which are spaces that can be used for events but are not actually designed for events.”

“This is a truly unique facility with a collaborative ethos between industry and academia while linking domestic and international associations,” adds Aileen Crawford, head of conventions at Glasgow City Marketing Bureau.

A successful bid from Edinburgh has resulted in the capital securing the prestigious Rehabilitation International 23rd World Congress, which will bring over 1,000 delegates to the city.

The Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC), which has recently expanded to offer new corporate function facilities, will host the four-day event in October 2016.

“The expansion has significantly increased the number of events, as well as the size of events, that the EICC can now host, which equates to an increased economic impact for the city,” explains Marshall Dallas, chief executive of the EICC.

“The benefits of our expanded venue were highlighted in 2014 when, for the first time, we were able to run two world congresses simultaneously.”

The venue’s £30m Lennox Suite was officially opened by the Princess Royal in January, and boasts the world’s first hall-wide moving-floor system. This allows the space to be easily configured into multiple room set-ups including