By Graeme Kemlo
While COVID-19 had been “decimating for the Australian economy and the South Australian economy” Adelaide Convention Bureau CEO Damien Kitto said the local industry had pulled together and saved 90 per cent of the business events they expected to deliver in 2020.
It was worth “hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said, adding that “2021 is going to be a good year, if not a strong year.”
Many of the events originally scheduled for this year have been pushed out one or two years.
He said the bureau had worked closely with other major cities around the country in an effort to retain as much business as possible. About 25 per cent of Adelaide’s business was international and he said that while nobody expected the international borders to be opened before June 2021, he expected the domestic market might resume early next year.