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Australia's Gold Coast Welcomes the World at AIME
| 11 February 2011
The Gold Coast Convention Bureau (GCCB) will use Australasia’s biggest business events forum to assure the world’s conference organisers and meeting planners that the city is as ready as ever to welcome corporate visitors, despite the recent Queensland cyclone and floods.
The Asia Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo (AIME) will be held in Melbourne 15-16 February, bringing together more than 4000 global heavyweights of the business events industry and providing a perfect opportunity to manage any misunderstanding about the Gold Coast’s current capabilities and also to attract new business events to the Gold Coast.
“Queensland must continue to compete for business events, it is a $626 million industry for the state and as the Gold Coast was entirely unaffected by the recent disasters we have a significant role to play in leading Queensland’s business event recovery and wider economic stability,” said Gold Coast TourismCEO Martin Winter.
“There has been wide spread miscommunication and misunderstanding about the recent natural disasters which has resulted in a loss of business for many Queensland destinations, even if like the Gold Coast they weren’t directly affected.”
“To combat the misunderstanding Gold Coast Tourism quickly dispatched staff to assure their trade and media networks in all major international markets, invested significant additional funds in marketing and promotion, kept media fully informed and even used various social networks to deliver the message that the Gold Coast was unaffected and ready to welcome visitors.”
“AIME is another perfect opportunity for us to meet with those national and international influencers which deliver hundreds of millions of dollars of business to Queensland and the Gold Coast every year, and give them the confidence they need to continue to do that.”
There will be strength in numbers promoting that message at AIME this year with the GCCB joined by 22 local businesses all representing the Gold Coast and what we have to offer the global business events industry.
The Gold Coast will not only play an important role in Queensland’s tourism recovery, it has already provided a great deal of support to business and leisure travellers as the disasters have unfolded over the past month. Recently, around 3,000 Chinese group travellers found their travel plans in disarray as Cyclone Yasi moved onto the north Queensland coast. Gold Coast tourism operators were able to quickly respond and assist the groups with accommodation and activities to ensure they still received
the iconic Queensland experience.
“Australia’s Gold Coast is one of the most diverse, beautiful, welcoming and evolving destinations in the world,” Mr Winter said. “It reflects everything people love about Queensland, so we will make sure the world’s business events industry at AIME this month understand that in 2011 the Queensland tourism industry and the Gold
Coast are ready to welcome them.”