Down Under. This May heralds the start of a bumper meetings and events season at the Adelaide Convention Centre with seven major conferences scheduled. Providing a 7.85 m euros lift to the South Australian economy, the conferences – all of them national with some attracting guests from overseas – are expected to attract in excess of 4,100 delegates generating more than 25,600 bed nights.

“Amongst all the doom and gloom, this is fantastic news for local hotels, restaurants, cafes, taxi companies, tour operators and other local businesses, providing an enormous injection into the local economy,” Adelaide Convention Centre Chief Executive Alec Gilbert says. “While we have hosted a number of conferences at the start of the year – including the prestigious Meetings Events Australia conference in April – May is traditionally when our conference season gains momentum and this year we’re off to a flying start.

Conferences include:
· National Histology Conference,  7 to 10 May
· Speech Pathology Australia National Conference, 17 to 21 May
· 16th National Conference of the Australian Sonographers Assoc., 21 to 24 May · Royal Australian & NZ College of Psychiatrists, 24 to 28 May
· Harcourts Real Estate Conference, 25 to 27 May

In May last year, Adelaide Convention Centre also hosted seven conferences although delegate numbers were lower at 3,320 people (15.610 bed nights) while the economic benefit was 2.2 m euros less, at 5.6 m euros. www.adelaidecc.com.au