27th September 2013, Friday
By Bryan T. Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
The English Market was the venue for Cork’s inaugural Business Tourism
event on Thursday evening 26
September, organised by Cork Convention Bureau (CCB). CCB played host
to over 120 guests from a wide
selection of Cork companies such as EMC, Stryker, Merck Sharp & Dohme
and Pepsico, while University
College Cork and a range of other organisations were also represented.
Over 30 hotels, venues and activity
providers from Cork showcased their offering on the night, while Cork
Opera House wowed all with a short
The main focus of the evening was to highlight Cork’s impressive and
unique offering and its ability to
successfully host international conferences and events. The English
Market was a very fitting venue for such
an evening with Cork’s renowned food product being a key selling point
to encourage more events into the
region and to distinguish it from other destinations.
Evelyn O’Sullivan Manager at Cork Convention Bureau commented ‘CCB’s
message this evening is very
simple – we want to encourage more international conferences and
meetings into Cork and we are finding one
of the best ways of doing this is working with local companies and
organisations. To date we have had great
success with our ‘Cork Needs You – Become A Conference Ambassador’
programme. We are continually
encouraging Cork based individuals, who have the ability to win
conferences and events, to contact us to see
how we can help. We have all the necessary supports in place including
funding and practical supports. Last
year we worked with 26 local ambassadors. 2012 also saw over 8,000
delegates come into Cork to attend
conferences and events secured by CCB. This is great business for our
member hotels and venues. The value
of an international delegate is calculated at €1,400 – four times the
spend of a leisure tourist.’