Convention Edinburgh has its best year yet

Marketing Edinburgh is what it says on the tin, but it has several layers behind it. One of those is Convention Edinburgh which is responsible for attracting business tourism to the city. The body has just reported on its most successful year ever, bringing £94.3m to the Edinburgh economy and 10,000 conference delegates to the city.

This is an increase of £2.8 million on last year’s figures and represents over 2000 conferences won by Convention Edinburgh in the last twelve months.

In 2016, the Ambassador Programme will celebrate its 20th anniversary and shows most clearly the momentum behind Convention Edinburgh. More than 50 new ambassadors have been recruited in the last year all with potential new conferences that Edinburgh could host.

John Donnelly, Chief Executive, Marketing Edinburgh said:
“This is great news for the city of Edinburgh and testament to the hard work of everyone involved. 2015/16 was a crucial year in Convention Edinburgh’s ongoing strategic development, not only in terms of bid win success, but positive client response.

While attracting global international associations remains a priority, particularly through our work with BestCities Global Alliance, we continue to invest in developing Edinburgh’s unique value proposition to a whole range of audiences, particularly in North America and Europe. Crucially, our active and influential Ambassador Programme has played an integral part helping us achieve our record breaking results – which I’m sure this will continue to do for the next twenty years.”

Lesley Williams, Head of Business Tourism at Convention Edinburgh said:
“With conference and delegate numbers strengthening year on year, there is a huge amount of potential future growth in the city. As a destination bureau, Convention Edinburgh’s role is evolving.

While supporting our clients in sourcing venues and accommodation remain important, increasingly we are playing a wider part in helping to shape conferences and build relevant connections for our clients. This is particularly true in emerging areas such as legacy development.

There is a growing ambition with meeting organisers to leave a lasting legacy within a host city, creating wider benefits that can continue to grow and outlive their event. As the conduit between local businesses, charities, academia and government, Convention Edinburgh is ideally placed to work with the client to help develop their legacy ambitions and bring about positive change.”

Councillor Gavin Barrie, Economy Convener, City of Edinburgh Council, said
“For Convention Edinburgh and its members to successfully bring more conferences to Scotland’s capital city than ever before is a tremendous achievement and result of a huge collaborative effort.

“Along with increasing the economic value of conferences and events to Edinburgh by more than £3 million pounds, the number of expected delegates has also increased by 10,000. These are significant figures, which will have a far reaching and a long lasting, positive impact on the city’s economy for years to come.”

Currently ranked 35 in the world’s city rankings according to the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) and 20th in Europe, Edinburgh annually holds more international meetings than any other UK city outside of London.

Next year’s annual results are already off to a flying start, with Edinburgh just announced as the host city of the biennial International Council for Commercial Arbitration Congress 2020, expected to attract 1,200 delegates and generate £2 million in local economic impact.