Birmingham’s business tourism sector has boosted the local economy by an estimated £4m thanks to three international conferences held at the International Convention Centre (ICC) over the summer.
IEEE Nano 2012 (20-23 August), CASE Europe (27-31 August) and SSIEM (4-7 September) all took place within three weeks of each other, equating to 36,000 bed nights for the city’s accommodation providers.
Birmingham Convention Bureau (BCB) supported all three events with its online accommodation service, bespoke websites, city welcome dressing and exclusive discount vouchers for delegates.
IEEE Nano 2012 (The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Nanotechnology Conference) brought 450 delegates to Birmingham to exchange information on their latest research progress. Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Konstantin Novoselov spoke at the event and the University of Birmingham hosted a conference dinner in its Great Hall.
The bid to host the event was undertaken as part of the Birmingham Ambassadors programme.
Kyle Jiang, Professor of Nanotechnology at the University of Birmingham’s School of Mechanical Engineering and IEEE Nano 2012 Conference Chair, said: “Delegates thoroughly enjoyed their stay in Birmingham, with plenty to see and do outside of the conference. The ICC facilities and catering were excellent.”
CASE Europe (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Annual Conference 2012 hosted 1,000 delegates at 100 sessions in the ICC. BCB organised a walking tour for international visitors.
The SSIEM (Society for the Study of Inborn Errors in Metabolism) symposium was the largest of the three conferences with 1,500 delegates. This event included a reception at Town Hall and tours of Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, canals and heritage buildings.
Catherine Newhall-Caiger, Business Development Director at the ICC said: “We were delighted to host not just one, but three highly-renowned international conferences at our venue this summer. Next summer is set to be another busy one for us with the International Union of Physiological Sciences conference secured for next July. The five-day conference is expected to attract 4,000 delegates to the city.
Ian Taylor, Commercial Director at Marketing Birmingham, the city’s strategic marketing partnership which operates BCB, said: “Competition to lure events of this calibre remains strong, but with an unrivalled location at the heart of the country and continued investment into our hotel and transport infrastructure, we remain confident that more prestigious national and international conferences will be attracted to our enviable offer.”
Meanwhile, with 700 exhibitors and 14,000 visitors are expected to attend the Recycling and Waste Management show, which opens at the NEC today (11 September). The NEC used the occasion to announce it has achieved ‘zero waste to landfill’ two years ahead of schedule.
Venue MD Kathryn James said: “We are thrilled to have achieved our zero waste to landfill goal ahead of schedule affirming our greener venue credentials. It is testament to the work undertaken by ‘Team NEC’ to significantly reduce and recycle our waste as well as choose suppliers who share our vision.”
The NEC has reached its ‘zero waste to landfill’ goal in three years. In 2009, an onsite Waste Pre-Treatment Centre was opened with a target to to be recycling 50 per cent of the venue’s waste by the end of 2013. In January 2011, it was realised that focusing on large items such as cardboard and metal was not going to be enough, so an in-house ‘Take The Waste Out’ campaign meant over 40 per cent of the NEC’s waste was being recycled by the end of 2011 and a new target of becoming a zero landfill venue by 2014 was set.
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