GOLD Coast Tourism (GCT) will be exhibiting at GIBTM to promote its own unique range of meetings and accommodation venues catering to the business tourism market, in addition to its diverse range of attractions.
“The Gold Coast has announced a clear strategy to achieve premier status as a meetings, conference and convention destination. In the Middle East our plans are to initially target the corporate market and develop the incentive and association markets,” says a spokesperson. “The Gold Coast has long been established as a favourite leisure holiday destination for the Asia Pacific region, and now it has staked a claim to increase its share of the meeting, conference and convention market.”
Business Tourism is central to the historic Gold Coast Tourism Five Year Plan, which recently gained record government funding to increase the region’s tourism by over two million visitors and achieve an annual tourism economic impact of more than $6 billion.
The sector represents a $17.36 billion industry in Australia, and GCT will focus on growing their share of this lucrative segment, currently worth around $283 million to the city.
Business tourism, then, is considered one of the most lucrative growth area for tourism based on industry size, current market share and city infrastructure. Having already demonstrated a 35 per cent growth in business tourism over the past 12 months, GCT is on target to achieve record business tourism receipts of more than $1.45 billion by 2010.
The Gold Coast is consistently ranked as a top three resort destination for the Asia Pacific business tourism sector, says the spokesperson. The destination hopes to replicate the achievements of cities such as Orlando and Singapore by growing its leisure tourism domination, but balancing that with an attractive Business Tourism proposition, resulting in a complete destination.
GCT has recently implemented and whole of city re-branding to better represent the destination. The Very Gold Coast, VeryGC brand and cross-media campaign expresses the vision of Australia’s Gold Coast as the lifestyle capital of the Asia Pacific Region.
The brand encapsulates the unique character of the Gold Coast as a microcosm of the Australian lifestyle, and promotes the region as a multi-faceted destination, rich in colour and diversity and synonymous with glorious weather, health, vitality and life itself.