This year’s summit in Cannes was attended by 8500 delegates and journalists, who logged about 35,000 hotel room nights.
Security was the biggest cost, with 12,000 people providing security – including 2500 extra police brought in for the event.
ACT Chamber of Commerce chief executive Chris Peters said the capital couldn’t handle an event like the G20 leaders summit.
”It’s never going to be large enough for events of that size,” he said.
”Canberra doesn’t have enough ongoing demand for them but we can be a satellite for those international and large national conferences.
”That would not only put Canberra on the map with the international visitors but also to promote Canberra to the world through the wide media coverage they obtain.”
ACT Liberal Senator Gary Humphries said Canberra needed to be seen more as an international city, where international meetings took place. He would like to see Canberra promoted as an international centre for dialogue.
”I recall that a few years ago CHOGM had to be moved from Canberra because there wasn’t deemed to be enough space here,” he said.
”There was a very strong response from the Labor party saying it ought to have been held in Canberra.”
”If they believed then that the capacity was there in Canberra for it to happen I assume it’s possible for something equivalent to CHOGM, namely G20, could happen here as well.”
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