Ensuring business tourism remains resilient in Glasgow
New figures released by Glasgow Convention Bureau demonstrate the value of conferences to the city’s economy and highlight the work being done to secure future meetings; ensuring business tourism remains resilient in Glasgow in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
Between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022, Glasgow recorded successful bids for 71 new conferences, which collectively will bring more than 36,000 delegates to Scotland’s largest city and boost the local economy by some £53 million in delegates’ spending.
During the 2022/23 financial year, Glasgow will host over 100 meetings which will deliver an additional £87m in delegateS’ spending.
More than 50,000 delegates will visit Glasgow for the UK and international conferences between April 2022 and March 2023, including those attending the prestigious World Congress of Soil Science, which will see 1,500 representatives gather at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) from 31 July to 5 August for a conference worth £4m to the city.
Glasgow Convention Bureau, which is part of Glasgow Life, competes globally to secure conference business; working on more than 100 bids for major conferences every year alongside key partners like the SEC and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, as well the city’s academic community, tourism and hospitality businesses, and local transport operators.
Recognised as one of the world’s leading business tourism destinations, Glasgow has been named the Best Convention Bureau in the UK at the industry-leading Meetings & Incentive Travel (M&IT) Awards for 15 consecutive years. In 2017, Glasgow Convention Bureau became the first-ever convention bureau to win a Green Tourism Award – the world’s largest certification programme of its kind and the go-to standard for sustainable tourism.
In 2021, as Glasgow hosted the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, Glasgow Convention Bureau became the world’s first convention bureau to join the global Tourism Declares movement, which encourages the travel industry to acknowledge the climate emergency and develop appropriate action plans. Additionally, Glasgow was the first UK city to achieve EarthCheck Benchmarked Community Status in 2021 as part of the EarthCheck Sustainable Destinations programme, which helps destinations to measure and monitor their environmental, economic and social impact, as well as track their efforts against other cities around the world.
Glasgow is committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and is currently ranked fourth in the Global Destination Sustainability Index (GDS-Index).
Sarah Garry, Executive Officer of the British Society of Soil Science, said: “We started working with the Glasgow Convention Bureau and the SEC on our invitation to host the World Congress in 2008, so we are delighted that after all of the hard work and planning, over 2,000 delegates from the international soil science community will meet at the SEC from 31 July 2022. We hope that congress attendees will use the congress as a stimulus to develop innovative solutions within academia and industry, and support the general public to recognise the importance which soil has in securing our future.”
Steven Jenkinson, Events and Venue Services Manager at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said: “The RCN Congress is returning to the SEC from 5–9 June and we are delighted to be coming back to Glasgow with our first in-person congress since the pandemic. Our members are looking forward to re-engaging with each other after being on the front line throughout the Covid pandemic. It will be an inspirational and emotional event for all our members. Thanks go to the convention bureau team who are providing a range of support services to enhance the congress experience for our delegates.”
Find out more about Glasgow at https://glasgowconventionbureau.com/.