{"id":8130,"date":"2020-09-11T03:05:03","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T03:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=8130"},"modified":"2020-09-11T03:05:03","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T03:05:03","slug":"restarting-australias-business-events-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/09\/11\/restarting-australias-business-events-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"Restarting Australia\u2019s Business Events Sector"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thousands of jobs across the tourism and hospitality industry will be backed through a $50 million injection to help restart Australia\u2019s vital business events sector.<br \/>\nBusinesses will be encouraged to attend events, trade shows and conferences within Australia through grants to help cover the costs associated with exhibiting such as the hire of exhibition spaces, the design and manufacture of displays, travel and accommodation.<br \/>\nPrime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia\u2019s lucrative $36 billion business events sector had virtually ground to a halt during the COVID-19 crisis.<br \/>\n\u201cGetting business events up and running again will be a critical part of the recovery of our tourism industry, but will also have huge flow-on effects through the entire economy,\u201d Prime Minister Morrison said.<br \/>\n\u201cThis is not only about supporting events companies and venues, but will also be a shot in the arm for a broad range of businesses and the people they employ &#8211; whether it\u2019s accommodation providers, those who build exhibitions, caterers, cleaners or those offering audio-visual services.\u201d<br \/>\nDeputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development Michael McCormack said the program would provide opportunities and encourage businesses from regional Australia to attend events in their own backyard.<br \/>\n\u201cWith many international trade shows out of reach for the time being, making it less expensive and easier for regional businesses to attend events in Australia will also present new opportunities to connect with and secure new customers,\u201d the Deputy Prime Minister said.<br \/>\n\u201cBusiness events encourage domestic travel and the more events we can lock in, the more people we can get flowing through our airports, on planes and staying in hotels around the country.\u201d<br \/>\nFederal Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham said the sector had been hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic with around 95 per cent of business events for 2020 either cancelled or postponed.<br \/>\n\u201cOur business events sector is doing it incredibly tough at present and getting events put back into the calendar will help this key part of our tourism industry which supports around 230 000 jobs turn the corner,\u201d Minister Birmingham said.<br \/>\n\u201cBy incentivising attendance by exhibitors this should give event companies and organisers across Australia the confidence they need to move ahead with the planning of business events.\u201d<br \/>\nMinister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews said the investment would also make businesses more resilient.<br \/>\n\u201cMany Australian businesses are looking to each other to strengthen their supply chains, to prevent the shocks they experienced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,\u201d Minister Andrews said.<br \/>\n\u201cConnecting businesses through trade shows and conferences will help unlock widespread collaboration and boost domestic capability by creating and expanding local supply chains.\u201d<br \/>\nUnder the Business Events Exhibitor Grants program, Australian businesses exhibiting at an approved business meeting, convention, conference and incentives event in 2021 will be able to apply for upfront grants to cover up to 50 per cent of their costs ($10,000 &#8211; $250,000).<br \/>\nThis initiative is part of the Morrison-McCormack Government\u2019s $1 billion COVID-19 Relief and Recovery Fund, which is supporting regions, communities and industry sectors severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.<br \/>\nFor more information, go to:\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.austrade.gov.au%2Faustralian%2Ftourism%2Ftourism-and-business%2Fgrants&amp;data=02%7C01%7CBenn.Ayre%40dfat.gov.au%7Ca4157dd73f7a4f7f850508d85526a9d5%7C9b7f23b30e8347a58a40ffa8a6fea536%7C0%7C0%7C637352971845118651&amp;sdata=FaCyCV4ty8lnTQkpVC%2FAoc5MsM3SJeWriHQzF73eisM%3D&amp;reserved=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.austrade.gov.au\/australian\/tourism\/tourism-and-business\/grants<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thousands of jobs across the tourism and hospitality industry will be backed through a $50 million injection to help restart Australia\u2019s vital business events sector. Businesses will be encouraged to attend events, trade shows and conferences within Australia through grants to help cover the costs associated with exhibiting such as the hire of exhibition spaces, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/09\/11\/restarting-australias-business-events-sector\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Restarting Australia\u2019s Business Events Sector&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}