A new tourism study published by Visit Manchester reveals that conferences and business events generated £822m for Greater Manchester’s economy during 2011, a 43 per cent increase from £573m reported for 2009.
Greater Manchester welcomed 5.2m delegates to its venues in 2011, an increase of 23 per cent on 4.2 delegates in 2009. A further 8.2m delegate days were generated, representing a 19 per cent increase on 2009 when 6.9m delegate days were recorded.
The Conference Value and Volume 2012 study also reports that 21,800 full time jobs were supported by the business tourism sector throughout Greater Manchester.
“The results of this study show just how big a contribution the conference and business tourism sector makes to the local economy – in terms of both economic value and job creation,” says Managing Director of Visit Manchester, Paul Simpson.
“There have been major developments in Greater Manchester’s conference product over recent years, in terms of developing the infrastructure and support services that organisers expect of a conference destination, and increasing the region’s conference venue supply.”
According to the study, corporate business events account for 59 per cent of all business events in the region, followed by government and public sector events (28 per cent), national association conferences (11 per cent) and international association conferences (three per cent).
“It is particularly encouraging to see that the national association sector has experienced the largest growth in terms of generating economic impact in the last two years, up 68 per cent on 2009, and that the economic impact from international association conferences nearly doubled to £21m in 2001 from £11m in 2009,” adds Simpson.
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