THE entire interior premises of Adelaide Convention Centre is now available for virtual viewing on the Google Virtual Tour platform, a first for an Australian convention centre, done in an effort to give clients an additional tool when planning their events there.

It incorporates 316 panoramic photos, built from 3792 separate images and showcases all 15,000m² of the centre’s three levels including external views of North Terrace and the Riverbank precinct. Visitors can also tour around the perimeter of the centre and along North Terrace using Google Street View.

Commenting on the technology, Alec Gilbert, CEO, Adelaide Convention Centre, said: “The 360 degree navigation technology works just like Google Street View so viewers have complete control of their experience and are free to explore what most interests them.”

“Google Maps and Street View are used all around the world so it makes it easy to access for anyone considering booking, visiting or generally interested in familiarising themselves with the centre,” he added.

Google Virtual Tour forms part of Adelaide Convention Centre’s digital strategy which includes social media, digital newsletters, video, a new interactive website and the iMap event planning application.

BUSINESS event visitor numbers in Tasmania has reached new heights in 2015, according to statistics from the Tasmanian Visitor Survey released last week by Tourism Tasmania.

Visitors to the Australian state for work-related events soared to 40,800 visitors last year, up 42 per cent compared to the 28,800 business event visitors in 2014.

“The results confirm Business Events Tasmania’s data which highlighted a stand-out period for conference and business event activity in 2015, particularly in the last quarter,” said Stuart Nettlefold, CEO, Business Events Tasmania.

Giving specific examples, he said: “In September last year, Hobart hosted a high number of large national and international business events, including the 2015 Baker’s Delight National Conference, the Society of Economic Geologists International Conference 2015 and the 2015 Population Health Conference.

“The Bakers Delight Conference was arguably the biggest corporate event to ever be held in Tasmania, with over 1200 delegates attending plus partners.”

Nettlefold expects the industry to continue to grow in Tasmania, calling the state a “hotspot” for business events and conferences.

LEADING event and incentive travel programme specialist Maritz Travel, headquartered near St Louis, Missouri, says negotiating for lower hotel rates and finding availability of meeting spaces are the current biggest challenges facing the MICE industry in the US.

David Peckinpaugh, president of Maritz Travel, said increasing demand versus stagnant supply was putting pressure on availability and price. However, he forecast the industry would continue to grow at a healthy rate of between five and 10 per cent in the next two years.

During his keynote address last week at the Singapore: A Curated Discovery seminar, Peckinpaugh told 20 invited buyers from the US and more than 50 local industry members that increased demand for all-inclusive incentives was also trending.

“Now, it is also all about mobile and wearable beacon technology, that when used in name badges to track data on delegates, will be the wave of the future,” he said.

Latest figures show Maritz booked 4.2 million rooms night, planned and executed 8,600 meetings, events and incentive travel programmes and negotiated total spend of US$1.16 billion on behalf of its clients.

“Budgets are driving key decisions. It is still very difficult to measure the impact of an event’s ROI and the impact of experience. Unless clients can go back to the CFO and show these measurements, budgets will be flat. So we must do more in terms of measurement,” he pointed out.

He added: “Despite the challenges, Asia’s accommodating culture often makes it easier to plan an event than in Europe. This is a high demand area and speaks well for the organisations here.”

As well, Peckinpaugh reiterated a number of times the perceived safety of the destination was a top priority. Other important factors for choosing a destination include fresh ideas, a wow experience, strong airlift, appropriate facilities and attractive pricing.