BESydney Wins Inaugural Global Impact Award
Business Events Sydney (BESydney) has won the inaugural Global Destination Sustainability Movement (GDS-Movement) and #MEET4IMPACT Impact Award for destination management organisations committed to legacy and impact through business events.
The ceremony overnight in Valencia, Spain, recognised BESydney for its world-leading work creating a social impact methodology and framework for business events across Sydney and NSW.
“We are very grateful for this recognition,” BESydney CEO Lyn Lewis-Smith said.
“We committed more than a decade ago to identifying and measuring the ‘Beyond Tourism Benefits’ of business events for local and global communities.
“Now we are collaborating with those communities to reduce our environmental footprint, and to co-create and measure long-term social impact as well as economic outcomes from the business events we attract to our city.”
"GDS Movement salutes the 2023 award winners for their profound achievements that inspire and inform,” GDS Movement CEO and Chief Changemaker, Guy Bigwood said.
“Sustainability is a systemic solution where everybody wins, and winning practices can be analysed, borrowed, adapted, and scaled for exponential positive impact.
“We encourage all destinations to take their cue from these leaders and work together with us to transform tourism and events into a tool for regeneration in every destination on earth."
BESydney Associate Director - Europe, Sebastian Gonzalez, accepted the award from MEET4IMPACT Founder Genevieve Leclerc.
BESydney has long backed the beyond tourism benefits of business events from knowledge transfer, innovation, collaboration, sector development to talent attraction.
“Thank you to our impact partners City of Sydney and Sustainable Destination Partnership and also Carmel Foley and Deborah Edwards at the University of Technology Sydney Business School for the seminal Beyond Tourism Benefits and the work that began the measurement of our impact journey more than a decade ago,” Lewis-Smith said.
“I’d like to acknowledge our clients for working with us to develop the framework. And also to our industry partners who inspire us every day in their determination to make a difference, International Convention Centre Sydney, Arinex, Accor and the Sydney Opera House.”
In 2019 BESydney and the City of Sydney’s Sustainable Destination Partnership received the inaugural GDS Innovation Award for ‘Innovation in Sustainability’ for outstanding collaboration.
The annual Global Destination Sustainability Index rankings were also released overnight with Sydney achieving our highest ever score, maintaining our place in the world’s Top 30 Sustainable Destinations in an increasingly hotly contested field.
Working with our partners City of Sydney and Destination NSW, BESydney is an associate member of the Sustainable Destination Partnership - a collaboration of hotels, cultural institutions, venues and industry influencers working together to make Sydney a sustainable destination for visitors and events.
