The Australian Financial Review – Wednesday 27 June

CAIRNS BREAKS INTO THE BIG TIME

Being named in the US as one of the top 10 international convention centres earlier this year puts the fledging Cairns Convention Centre right on track for its precocious push into the North America market.

A survey of readers by Adams Business Media ranked the small North Queensland centre – population 120,000 – along side 3 million-plus metropolises such as Paris, Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver.

The Cairns Convention Centre’s managing director, Geoff Donaghy, is understandably proud of the effort – the complex opened only in July, 1996.

Claimed as the only international convention centre outside Australia’s capital cities, Cairns has the jump on other maturing leisure tourist destinations like the Whitsunday's.  Donaghy puts its advantage down to two factors: in the capital-rich 1980s the Cairns Port Authority built an international airport, and a decade later the city was granted a casino license.

The airport, just 10 minutes from the city centre, attracts close to 100 international flights a week, and stage one of the $50 million Convention Centre was funded from the casino license.

 “Asia and Europe have been out priority international markets for the past two years,” Donaghy says, “but our development strategy has always been to target North America next.”

Stage two of the centre opened in 1999 and hosted 16 major conventions.  By estimates netted the region $36.5 million.  He expects to do a similar amount of business in the coming financial year, with major events on the books including a 4,000 delegate Amway contingent from Korea.

Unlike metropolitan convention centres in Australia, Cairns realizes it can’t rely on local or State business.  From the start, its focus has been national and international.  In March it joined forces with six local industry partners to mount a road show covering Australia’s eastern capitals.

With the national calendar covered, the push is now into overseas markets.  Road shows have visited Singapore and Hong Kong, and Europe and the US are next.

Industry co-operation is a byword in the Cairns campaign.  The MICE (meetings, incentive, conventions and exhibitions) industry is seen as a way of rejuvenating the city centre – and a medium convention (500-800 delegates) adds up to 25 per cent to the occupancy rates of CBD hotels.

Louise Kennedy

For More Information:

                        Geoff Donaghy
                        Managing Director
                        Cairns Convention Centre
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