During the 2025-2026 financial year, Business Events Adelaide secured 197 business events for South Australia, which are expected to attract 105,525 delegates.
While the estimated value of the events won is less than the record $684 million secured in the previous financial year, it is more than a quarter of a billion dollars above what was a record year for the bureau just two years ago, indicating a sustained uptick in achievement for the organisation.
With research by the University of Adelaide for the bureau finding that delegates spend an average of $1,165 per day when attending a business event in the South Australian capital, Business Events Adelaide posits that event attendees that it secures are injecting almost $2 million a day into the state’s economy.
In the bureau’s annual report, released last week, its chair, Ian Horne, and its CEO, Damien Kitto, both reflected on the loss of Australia’s COP31 bid, with the event slated for Adelaide had it been successfully secured.
“It is impossible to overstate what a global event of that scale would have done for our innovation districts, universities, key industries, members and status as a sustainable business event destination in front of a truly influential audience,” wrote Horne in Business Events Adelaide’s annual report.
“It would have been transformative in a way that no other single event could match.
“That we were nominated as Australia’s host city, however, is a source of pride and a marker of the ambition that the Malinauskas Government has for South Australia.
“What I can say with confidence is that the bid was not wasted effort.
“Reacting to a credible case for a global event of scale required Business Events Adelaide to think big and match the ambition shown.
“Capability, once realised, does not disappear with an unsuccessful outcome; it stays with the organisation for the next opportunity,” wrote Horne.
“It led our board to consider more global opportunities and resulted in the [bureau’s] international strategy.”
Kitto explained that the loss of the COP31 bid “caused us to pivot from our usual focus on medium- to long-term opportunities”.
“Below-average bookings across the second half of the year for member hotels and venues prompted a rapid-response campaign to secure a higher volume of short-term business events, spread as widely as possible across our membership base,” wrote Kitto.
“These smaller wins are less headline-grabbing…but reflect a deliberate shift in how we responded to a specific challenge.”
Kitto also shed light on Business Events Adelaide’s evolving approach to the international market.
“Evidence shows the majority of international association meetings attract fewer than a thousand delegates,” he wrote.
“This is a market Adelaide is well placed to cater for, competing on relevance and quality of experience in sectors where South Australia holds genuine research and industry strength, rather than trying to out-build and out-bid destinations many times our size.
“Having spent recent years consolidating our domestic position, we are now investing in a genuine presence in key overseas markets, building relationships rather than relying on periodic visits and creating a dedicated role here in Adelaide to oversee our highest-priority international bids.”
