The Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre reports a strong 2010. Turnover, at SEK 800 million, was an all-time high. The result also hit a historic peak.
“A lot of this success was due to the way our congress-promoting efforts paid off,” says Carin Kindbom, President and CEO.
• 2010 was the first time that the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre’s turnover reached the SEK 800 million mark.
“We also recorded some of our highest figures ever for cash flow – SEK 116 million, operating income – SEK 89 million, and earnings after financial income and expenses – SEK 43 million.”
• Carin Kindbom, who took over as President and CEO on 1 August 2011, sees two main reasons behind these very positive figures:
“Our exceptionally strong conference programme helped to boost our meetings business. And the increase in business travel in the second half of the year gave our hotel and restaurant business a big lift.”
• The meetings side of the business chalked up 331,742 conference-delegate days, breaking the previous record by a huge margin. Hotel Gothia Towers set new guest records for July, August, October and December.
“The July occupancy rate was a hard-to-beat 96.2%, while the rate for the whole year was 72.7%, making a total of 186,852 room nights, an increase of 9% on 2009. Restaurant receipts increased by 30%, and we sold all of 152,349 of our famous King Size Shrimp Sandwiches, also a record.”
• The exhibition side, however, showed a slight drop.
“Exhibitions and trade fairs are among the later sectors to benefit when the economy turns around,” explains Carin Kindbom. “But, sales of future exhibitions did increase significantly during autumn and winter, and we noted a marked growth in several market segments.”
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