Slice Of Sydney

Sydney ’s future as a destination offering the best of business and leisure now seems secure

- Sue White

It’s hard to imagine how global icons like the Sydney Opera House and Bondi Beach could be anything but a positive for those in the tourism game, but when you are building a business brand for a city like Sydney, its popularity as a leisure destination does present the occasional difficulty.“Sydney has a strong reputation globally and that’s been built on a leisure brand: people think of Sydney Harbour and the icons in Sydney,” says Kristian Nicholls. He would know; Nicholls is the general manager (bidding) for the non-profit, government-backed organisation Business Events Sydney (BESydney), an entity tasked with ensuring the business and meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) sectors realise Sydney’s strengths too.

As the state capital of New South Wales, Sydney operates in a reasonably stable political environment. It’s a credential worth mentioning given that at a federal level Australia has famously changed prime ministers six times in 12 years – five times if you count former PM Kevin Rudd only once. New South Wales also benefits from its status as a services-led economy, so the downturn in the resources sector – which has challenged locations like Western Australia – isn’t problematic.

But despite the fact that Sydney’s business credentials are increasingly turning into one of its market advantages, those same glamorous icons that impress the region’s 39 million or more visitors a year can mean it’s not all upside for those plugging a serious business destination.