With an initial overall target of 700 attendees for the 32nd ACM International Conference for Multimedia 2024, Chinese delegates registered account for a whopping 171 per cent of the target alone.
Twelve hundred Chinese delegates have registered, making up the majority of attendees, with 1,700 delegates registered in total from around the world.
ICMS Australasia is managing the conference on behalf of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM).
The PCO’s CEO, Emma Bowyer, attributes the huge number of Chinese delegates to a number of factors, including reduced travel restrictions for Chinese travellers and a specific marketing push to attract those from mainland China to the conference. Registrations were also opened earlier than usual for the meeting to give international delegates more time to secure any necessary visas for Australia.
“We were aware there was a huge tech and multimedia science industry in China and significant pent-up demand for experts there to share knowledge and research with the rest of the world,” said Bowyer.
“They’ll be doing that now in Melbourne.
“Our conference chair, Jianfei Cai, along with some key members of the organising committee, who work closely with many Chinese universities and research organisations, have been helping us promote the event, especially through WeChat.
“Our combined efforts have resulted in a significant rise in delegate attendance which is fantastic news for the Australian multimedia community, the city of Melbourne and of course attendees.”
Since pandemic-era travel bans were removed, Chinese travellers have been slow to return to Australia.
The latest figures from Tourism Research Australia show that in the year to June 2024, Chinese travellers to Australia were at just 56 per cent of 2019 levels.
And while they have returned to their place as Australia’s second top visitor market by number of travellers, there was a significant gap between the top two markets, where they used to be virtually neck and neck. Australia’s closest neighbour, New Zealand, continues to be the top visitor source market.
ICMSA is putting the additional revenue gained through the event’s delegate boom to work in a variety of ways, including providing lounge areas at the venue and boosting the experience at the conference’s social events.
“We have also been able to increase the opportunity for student attendance,” said Bowyer.
“Initially we had no budget to offer student travel grants even though the committee wanted to help support them as much as possible. Once the budget was better than anticipated we were able to offer 10 then 15 and now 25 student travel grants, with funding assisting successful applicants towards their on-site costs.
“We know that our Melbourne suppliers and the entire city of Melbourne will also benefit from the increase in delegate numbers.
“In terms of accommodation alone we estimate there will be an additional 5,000 room nights for the city’s hotels.”
