WHEN it comes to the economy in Scotland and the rest of the UK, good news has been pretty thin on the ground for a long, long time.

While the oil and gas sector has certainly exacerbated Scotland’s troubles, much of the deluge of bad economic news has flowed from the Conservatives’ ill-judged austerity programme. Recently, slowing global growth has been another dampener, but austerity has been dragging us all down for about six years now.

This difficult backdrop means that, when some good news comes along, it is even more encouraging than it might be in better economic times.

That was certainly the case this week when it emerged Glasgow had secured a record amount of future conference business during the year to March, with these wins expected to see £141 million of revenues generated for the city between now and 2022.

Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (GCMB) revealed that, in the year to March, the city had confirmed 513 new international and UK meetings through to 2022, equating to about 420,000 delegate days. It emphasised the crucial role played by “ambassadors” from the academic, scientific, medical and business communities in bringing conferences to the city.

Glasgow’s great success in winning conference business was also underlined last month when research showed the city attracted more international conference delegates last year than New York, Washington DC or Beijing. The city was second in the UK only to London as it notched up its best global ranking for 10 years in the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) report.

GCMB noted that the Glasgow Conference Ambassador Programme, which it manages, had secured 49 per cent of all conference business booked in the 12 months to March 31, compared with only 30 per cent two years earlier.

The £141m figure for future conference revenues secured in the year to March was up from a corresponding £139m in the 2014/15 financial year. In 2013/14, Glasgow won future conference business worth £134m in revenue terms.

GCMB noted that, in its first year of operation in 2005/06, Glasgow had secured future conference business worth about £65m in revenue terms. So it has certainly been quite a decade in terms of great growth in conference business won by the city. The marketing bureau, part of Glasgow City Council’s Glasgow Life arm, highlighted the importance of its symbiotic partnerships with other organisations in winning record future conference business in the year to March.

It highlighted the benefits of its relationships with the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre complex, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Glasgow’s universities and the wider business community. And its detailing of who had played key roles in big conference bids underlined the huge contribution of individual ambassadors in bringing, in total, many thousands of delegates to the city over coming years.

Conference business for future years won by Glasgow in 2015/16 included the European Association for Chinese Studies’ conference in 2018. GCMB noted this bid had been led by Minna Torma, lecturer in Chinese art at the University of Glasgow’s School of Culture and Creative Arts.

And GCMB highlighted the leading role played by Dr Richard Russell and Dr Richard Hansen, both consultant paediatric gastroenterologists at Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Children, in bringing the annual meeting of the European Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition to the city in 2019.

Meanwhile, David Koppel, consultant surgeon at the city’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, played a crucial role in Glasgow’s winning bid to host the International Conference on Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in 2021.

The ICCA revealed 36,885 delegates attended international conferences in Glasgow in 2015, ranking the city 28th out of 400 in the world on this measure. Vienna was top and London was second. Edinburgh was ranked 66th in the ICCA report, with 16,028 international conference delegates.

For anyone who has been following Glasgow’s economic progress recently, in these austere times, it will probably come as no surprise to hear that partnerships are playing a crucial part in bringing conference business to the city.

Glasgow Chamber of Commerce chief executive Stuart Patrick is among those who you often hear waxing lyrical about the assets of the city, from its world-class universities to Glasgow Airport and everything else in between.

The city has not had its challenges to seek, chief among them the devastating long-term effects of the decline of heavy industry and the tragedy of extreme poverty that is, in some cases, associated with this demise.

However, where there are challenges, people often come together for the greater good. And Glasgow, while undoubtedly faced with huge challenges and ones that are being exacerbated by Westminster policies such as savage welfare cuts, certainly does have major strengths on which it can capitalise.

Chief among these strengths are the city’s people. It is always heartening to see the spirit of the people of Glasgow shine through in the impressive and diverse entries for The Herald’s annual Inspiring City Awards, from volunteers making a big difference in communities to world-leading researchers.

It also remains, as it has been for centuries, an outward-looking city.

All in all, given its people and the increasingly effective co-operation of its public sector, academic and business communities, Glasgow is very well placed to become an ever-more prominent player on the international conference stage. Watch out Vienna.