“The usual questionnaires after a conference ask, ‘How was the food? How was the hotel? How was the venue?’,” says Associate Professor Deborah Edwards, a researcher with UTS Business School at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). “We ask them, ‘Did you gain new knowledge? Did you form new networks? Did you have any serendipitous ideas?’ And they do.”
“As a result, convention centres and other organisations in cities around the world are starting to understand, to measure and to leverage the impact of events,” adds fellow researcher Associate Professor Carmel Foley. “Destinations around the world now plan for legacy.”
One of their early studies, commissioned by Business Events Sydney (BESyd), has been described as prompting ‘a big pivot‘ by the conferences and meetings industry internationally, shifting its focus to longer-term event legacies. The 2011 Beyond Tourism Benefits report documented broad and long-lasting legacies such as collaborations leading to industry innovation and scientific breakthroughs, as well as policy development and social change. Events can also help attract talent to cities and sectors.
In another study, for Sydney’s new International Convention Centre (ICC), they peeled back the layers of its food and beverage supply chain to find not only $8.3 million in economic benefits for the New South Wales economy – including $4 million in business impact for local producers – but also social benefits through the centre’s support of sustainable practices and work with groups like food rescue charity OzHarvest.
This encouraged the ICC to develop other legacy-targeted programs, Associate Professor Foley says.
In the researchers’ recent book, The Power of Conferences, they share personal stories of long-run impact, such as that of Nobel Prize laureate Professor Brian Schmidt, who draws a direct line from making a connection at his very first conference in 1990 to the ground-breaking work that earned him a Nobel Prize in Physics two decades later.
“I love that we work in an industry that can have such a huge impact in so many areas,” says Business Events Sydney Chief Executive Lyn Lewis-Smith. “Not only do international business events drive trade and investment and attract global talent, in the longer term they often lead to breakthroughs that save lives, change society or redefine policy and best practice.”
The evidence the research provided has helped the organisation recast its business strategy, secure funding, competitively bid for conferences and make successful submissions to government, she says.
In 2016 it restructured its bidding department into three industry teams targeting health; science, engineering & infrastructure; and professional services & technology, to align with national and state government priority sectors.
The Beyond Tourism Benefits research also led to a significant increase in Australian government support for meetings, Ms Lewis-Smith says.
“The research collaboration between Business Events Sydney and UTS has catalysed an industry that supports every other industry along with growing knowledge economies,” she says. Conference organisers, venues and bureaux are thinking about how to ‘design’ for long-term legacies.
The studies have also changed the way in which the global events sector measures its worth.
The researchers have worked with the Joint Meeting Industry Council, developing global case studies to model to others in the industry the potential for broader impact. Building on this approach the council has now begun a project showing how business events can contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
“Our value proposition as an industry has been shifting from one based on delegate and organiser spending to the value of what these events actually achieve for organisers, participants and host communities,” the council’s President, Joachim Koenig, said recently. “As simple as it sounds, this in fact has huge implications … The new collective view of the industry … is that such outcomes are their real purpose and value.”
The Chief Executive of the Scottish Event Campus, Peter Duthie, has said: “Business events have a key role in the internationalisation of cities, driving inward investment and stimulating key business sectors. We’re fortunate to operate in a city – and indeed a country – that ‘gets’ business events.”
Research team
-
Associate Professor, UTS Business School -
Associate Professor, Management Discipline Group
Faculty
- UTS Business School
- Management Discipline Group
Funded by
- Business Events Sydney (BESyd)
Partners
- International Convention Centre (ICC)
- OzHarvest
- Joint Meeting Industry Council
