The Brisbane Marketing Convention Bureau has ended the 2006-07 financial year on a high note announcing its most successful results to date, a budget boost and three new bid wins.

Brisbane Marketing Director of Business Development and AACB Vice-President, Mr Paul Lewin said the 2006-07 financial year had been an extremely successful year for the Bureau and Brisbane’s business tourism scene.

“The Bureau recorded its best financial year for business events attraction to date – registering 27 bid wins, 244 requests for proposals and 2,000 requests for information,” said Mr Lewin.

“We then capped that off by being named Queensland’s best Convention Bureau/Tourist Organisation at the 2006 Meetings and Events (MEA) Industry Awards (Queensland).”

Furthermore, while Sydney and Melbourne’s rankings declined, Brisbane jumped 24 places to claim 56^th spot in the 2006 International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) city rankings.

Mr Lewin said the good news continued with Brisbane City Council granting the Bureau additional funding to expand its efforts in the lucrative international association sector in the 2007-08 financial year.

“With this additional injection of Brisbane City Council funds the Bureau now has a strong mandate to attract further international business events for the city and more than $2million in total at our disposal for targeting the lucrative business events sector,” he said.

Mr Lewin said the budget boost was just recognition of the Bureau’s successful track record in generating business tourism leads for the city.

“In the last few months alone we’ve secured more than $2.3million worth of business events for the city,” he said.

The latest bid wins for the Brisbane Marketing Convention Bureau include the:

·         Australian Midwifery Expo (350 delegates – June 2008 – estimated economic impact of $441,000);

·         2009 Conference of the International Society for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (450 delegates – July 2009 – estimated economic impact of $1,045,000); and

·         53^rd Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (300 delegates – July 2009 – estimated economic impact of $875,700).