Australia’s major hotels – particularly in Sydney and Melbourne – face an ongoing staffing crisis that is unlikely to be fixed until the government promise to import thousands of international students is delivered. Read more
Here's hoping the removal of the cap on the number of hours international students can work per fortnight will help to remove some pressure from the hotel sector in the short term.
The grass roots industry advocacy group in Victoria is inviting stakeholders across the wider events industry to complete a survey to quantify the impact the Omicron COVID-19 variant is having on the industry.
The group says the survey is set up to gather a national perspective and encourages organisations with physical bases in multiple states to undertake the survey for each individual state they operate in.
You can take part in the survey here.
Surveys are a great way to quantify what's going on the industry to help governments understand the industry - we encourage everyone to take part.
ICC Sydney CEO Geoff Donaghy says all but one of the events impacted by the Omicron COVID-19 wave have rebooked or postponed.
He told micenet that clients are wanting their events to go ahead in person and they have elected to push back dates in order to proceed once the wave subsides. Read more
Great to hear all is not lost (or cancelled).
Just four days out from the start of the major global sporting event, the Victorian Government has announced it will pause ticket sales for the Australian Open at 50 percent capacity, in light of the state’s current Omicron outbreak. Read more
The Australian Open is not having a very easy run of things this year.
The just-launched Down Under Submarines will take guests on a journey 30m underwater in an Australian first for visitor and business events experiences. Read more
This sounds like a pretty awesome drawcard for the Sunshine Coast
Despite NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet saying that major events could proceed as planned last Friday, unless NSW Health contacted them to adjust their COVID Safe plans, on Monday NSW Health issued a blanket directive banning singing and dancing at all music festivals, including those held outdoors. Read more
So most festivals in NSW and SA can't go ahead, but the state governments are offering no support to organisers that would have spent up to a year working on these events.
Global exhibitions powerhouse Reed Exhibitions has appointed Helen Sheppard as its first Global Sustainability Director as it looks to begin work on making good on the Net Zero Carbon Events Pledge the events industry made at the UN climate change summit COP26 in late 2021. Read more
Good to see Reed putting their appointments where their mouth is (so to speak).
The leaders of the global business events community are converging on Las Vegas this week for Convening Leaders 2022, PCMA’s flagship annual conference. On the eve of the event, PCMA President and CEO Sherrif Karamat said the business events industry was more important than ever before. Read more
The continuing positivity in the face of adversity in this industry continues to impress me.
