The Business Tourism Market could act as one of the key factors to helping the economy recover and thrive again.
That's according to Ireland's conference organisation association who say work needs to be done on rising costs across Cork's hospitality sector in order to ensure the city is not priced out of this lucrative market.
AIPCO say Cork is competing with cities across Europe for a slice of this market and risks losing out if action is not taken to tackle rising inflation, hospitality staff shortages and rising accommodation costs.
Vice Chair of the organisation Greg Carew outlined to RedFM News how much the business tourism market is worth to the local economy:
"Our members would organise over 175 events per year. They are mostly International Association Conferences. We'd have a number of these taking place in and around the Cork area. We'd work with academics from likes of UCC, MTU, researchers from Teagasc, Moorepark, the Tyndall Institute. In total, we have over 45,000 international delegates coming into Ireland. When you factor in that each each delegate is actually worth over €1,600 it's a significant contribution to the Irish economy and obviously to the local economy for conferences that come to the Cork region".
