Boost in conference business brings millions into city
GLASGOW’S hospitality industry is already seeing a financial benefit from the Commonwealth Games – five months before the event starts.
The Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (GCMB), the organisation responsible for promoting Glasgow across the world, claims £50 million-worth of conference and events business has been directly attributed to the city’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games this July, with conference business expected to bring £150m into the city in the course of the year.
Glasgow’s international reputation, said the spokesman, “has never been more prominent”.
“We’re now on the world stage, and we’re hosting a major conference every month of 2014,” he said.
“We’ve never had that before, and that’s because conference organisers globally are recognising that the spotlight is on Glasgow and it could be a city [in which] they could hold their conference.”
And the GCMB is confident business tourism spend will continue beyond 2014, said the spokesman, with events already booked as far ahead as 2021.
Willie Macleod, executive director of the British Hospitality Association Scotland, said Glasgow’s image as a business tourism destination had “only been enhanced” by hosting the Commonwealth Games.
“This capability, and the successful partnership between public and private sectors, has not been lost on organisers of other sporting and entertainment events and those organising corporate and association conferences,” said Macleod.
