Convention centre gets $2m fighting fund
The State Government will give the Adelaide Convention Centre $2 million over two years to help it secure more “top-level” events.
The “bid fund” will by held by the South Australian Tourism Commission and used exclusively to finance the convention centre’s pitches for big events.
Bids will be a joint decision of the SATC, the convention centre and the Adelaide Convention Bureau, with criteria including a return on investment of at least $35 for every dollar invested or the provision of “exceptional publicity, business or trade opportunities for the State”.
The fund will be an add-on to the existing bid fund of $240,000 per year.
The convention centre is in the midst of stage one of a $350 million upgrade and expansion.
The Government announced the fund at the under-construction Ibis Hotel in Grenfell Street, and it is selling the financial spin-offs that conventions offer to other parts of the economy, including the hotel sector.
Premier Jay Weatherill said business travellers were bigger economic contributors than tourists, spending about $600 a day – more than three times the amount spent by tourists.
Tourism Minister Leon Bignell said an event attended by 3000 people over a week could generate about $15 million in economic value, including 20,000 hotel nights.
“It’s great to see the private sector investing so strongly in South Australia on the back of the Government’s significant capital works program including the Convention Centre and the Adelaide Oval,” he said.
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“Adelaide’s new hotels include the Ibis on Grenfell Street and the Mayfair Hotel and Quest Apartments on King William Street, as well as the 200 rooms planned as part of the six-star Adelaide Casino redevelopment.”
The 311-room Ibis Hotel will open next year.
Australian Hotels Association General Manager Ian Horne said the bid fund was a “sign of faith in the enormous importance of the tourism industry and will bring great benefits to tourism and the wider economy”.
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