EEAA CLOSES THE YEAR WITH BOARD VISIT TO ADELAIDE FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY ROUNDTABLE

By EEAA, 18 December, 2018

The Exhibition and Event Association of Australasia (EEAA) Board of Directors visited Adelaide for the Association’s final Board Meeting for the year and a South Australian Industry Roundtable.

The EEAA Board, and Adelaide Members and industry stakeholders discussed a range of issues, including sustainability, infrastructure investment and business events’ role in the South Australian economy.

EEAA Chief Executive, Joyce DiMascio said the visit to Adelaide enabled the EEAA community to meet to discuss Adelaide’s growing success leveraging business events to create lasting legacies for the South Australian economy.

“Adelaide is experiencing a major lift in its performance as a host city for business events and this can be directly attributed to the massive investment in venues, the riverfront precinct, hotels and aviation capacity.” Ms DiMascio said.

“We were very pleased to hear about the positive impact of business event on the South Australian economy following the opening of the expansion of the Adelaide Convention Centre in 2017.

It was also an historic day for the city, with the announcement that the city would be the home of the Australian Space Agency to be located on the site of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site, renamed Lot Fourteen – a new innovation hub.” Ms DiMascio said.

This announcement was seen as a legacy of Adelaide hosting the 2017 International Astronautical Congress last year.

“We often discuss the power of business events to support key industry pillars so it was very exciting to hear that successfully hosting the global Astronautical community contributed to the decision to locate Australia’s space agency in the city.” Ms DiMascio said.

At the Roundtable the EEAA Board and Members heard from:

  • Simon Burgess, Adelaide Convention Centre
  • Luke Edgington, Adelaide Convention Centre
  • Damien Kitto, Adelaide Convention Bureau
  • Ben Tuffnell, South Australian Tourism Commission

EEAA’s latest Market Monitor produced by Explori also identified the growing strength of Adelaide as a Business Events destination. The report released earlier this year said that with increased investment in the city’s infrastructure, Adelaide as well as Brisbane were seen as “host cities to watch” with the traditional dominance by Sydney and Melbourne potentially decreasing.

Source: EEAA