SWIMMING in the sea at Portobello at the crack of dawn in November might not be everyone’s ideal way to get ready for the day ahead, but it is, we are assured by Marshall Dallas, “invigorating”.

The chief executive of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre says a brisk dip in the Firth of Forth before work sets him up for the day, a day which could include greeting a former US president, high-level Chinese delegates considering investing in Scotland or reassuring European partners wary of what will come in the wake of Brexit.

The 52-year-old married father-of-two, who took over the helm at the EICC four years ago, could be forgiven for thinking his 6am ritual swim helps work wonders after the conference centre posted record results and with forecasts sitting well ahead of budgeted expectations.

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Mr Dallas, a high-end hospitality expert and businessman who started out at The Waldorf on The Strand and was later a director at Gleneagles Hotel before running a private hospitals group, said targeting international associations and corporate customers has helped bring in trade from all over the world, boosting the EICC bottom line but also the Scottish economy and bringing in more business tourists, who typically spend twice as much as their leisure counterparts.

Professional and personal highlights included meeting former US president Barack Obama in 2017 and his wife Michelle earlier this year.

Mr Dallas said the Obamas were “brilliant and inspirational”.

He said: “I met [former] President Obama at the back door of the EICC and I was ready to welcome him to Edinburgh and welcome him to Scotland and he came out of the back of his car with his dinner suit and his Ray-Ban specs and a cup of Lipton’s tea with him and he came straight over and he said, ‘Good evening Marshall’. He was one of these really engaging individuals.

“But I have to say his whole team were like that; extremely focused, they knew exactly what they wanted, but were very cool with it. He was due to be on stage for 40 minutes and actually stayed on stage for nearly an hour-and-a-half.

“Michelle was the same. She was lovely, engaging and obviously believes passionately about what she talks about, and is keen to make difference in the world in her way as she put it.”

Both had thousands of dinner guests at the separate events organised by Sir Tom Hunter’s philanthropic organisation the Hunter Foundation.

Another international coup was securing the renowned £5 million TEDSummit 2019 (Technology, Entertainment, Design), which follows a push in North America where the ideas-sharing organisation was founded.

To win the contract the EICC collaborated with partners in the city and around Scotland.

Mr Dallas said: “The bid document was led by us and we got contributions from VisitScotland, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Government, University of Edinburgh, and Edinburgh Napier University, Social Bite contributed and Festivals Edinburgh contributed, so it was a real team effort. The interesting thing was that we were shortlisted against Singapore and Melbourne.

“Melbourne is a fabulous conference destination and Singapore houses the most expensive hotel in the world – it is a very plush city.”

The EICC has also linked up formally with Edinburgh Napier University to help shape the next generation of tourism industry leaders.

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Above: Marshall Dallas at Loch Venachar

He said: “We launched the UK’s first MSc in Business Event Management.

“That has been a real privilege to work with Napier and we had students who graduated this year with an MSc in Business Events so their academic qualification comes from Napier and their vocational experience is facilitated by EICC.

“We were very much involved in the creation of the content of this course.

“It is a real passion of mine to make sure that the next generation of EICC chief executives and indeed any tourism industry leaders are ready when they come out of university for work.”

Another partnership has been formed with The Pleasance Theatre during Edinburgh Fringe, bringing an audience of 100,650 across 21 acts this year.

“It just gets more and more people through our venue which we are absolutely delighted about.”

Challenges ahead include the ever-present Brexit and potentially a tourist tax in Edinburgh.

Mr Dallas said: “We’ve had some very strong collaborations over the last 24 months really and because we have become such a diverse business taking a whole variety of events it really protects us from any challenges which I believe are going to be coming our way in the shape of Brexit for instance.

“When Brexit was announced there were some aftershocks in the wake of the announcement and specifically we had some European associations deciding to take their business elsewhere and we lost somewhere in the region of about £800,000 just in the wake of the Brexit vote.

“Having said that, we haven’t seen any further dip in business since then and Europe remains key to the EICC.

“Sixty per cent of our business comes from outside the UK so we’ve redoubled our efforts in engaging with European associations but we have also had a significant increase in targeting markets beyond Europe.

“So we’ve established different collaborations with people that are based in North America, which we did in 2016 and that is paying dividends.

“Market research has shown us that Scotland has a strong appeal in business tourism terms and I think a good example of that was the securing of the TED conference.”

He said: “I’m slightly conflicted on tourism tax because part of my job at the EICC is to ensure that our associations and corporate companies’ delegates secure the best rates possible.

“Whereas the hotels within the city are there to maximise their rates. So I’m really not sure as to how that would affect our business, it’s about like Brexit, you never know until it happens.

“I do understand from the council’s perspective that this increase in tourism has an effect on the city which needs to be dealt with.”​

He said the Scottish conference market has great potential.

Mr Dallas said: “Last year we had a record year. We’ve seen a significant increase since 2015 in both UK and international conferences with an economic impact achieving £55m which was never done before.

“We also had record revenues and profits in 2017.”

He said this has come about after a concerted effort to bring the centre team together to formulate a new mission statement “to create an environment which inspires ideas that change the world”.

Mr Dallas declared: “The vision statement I suppose has been the umbrella that sits above the EICC and keeps us focused on what we are there to do. We’ve taken this business over 36 months from a £1m loss to a £1.2m profit, so that doesn’t just happen. We are very proud of that.

“It is being able to see it from a Scottish perspective.

“The Scottish conference market, or the Scottish event market, is hugely buoyant. The event delegates spend twice as much when they are here than leisure tourists.

“One of the great things in Scotland is the fact you’ve got a conference centre here which specialises in associations and corporate business and you’ve got a wonderful conference centre in the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, which is much more focused on the big exhibitions and to have that in central Scotland really helps.

“We don’t tend to focus on pop concerts or music events purely because we don’t have the scale, whereas the Hydro in Glasgow obviously can facilitate that.”

He said: “Looking forward, our business is strong. We are going to have another great year this year. I think we are going to be well ahead of budgeted expectations and our economic impact is forecast to be more than last year which we are contributing into the city and Scotland, so from my perspective the EICC continues to move from strength to strength.”

Married to Jo, 46, both their children, Eva, 15 and Andrew, 13, also enjoy open-water swimming, a pastime Dumfries-born Mr Dallas does every month of the year in temperatures as low as eight degrees.

He said: “It is a real passion of mine. The trouble is getting time to do it. In the winter I tend to get down to Portobello round about 6am so it’s pitch black and we’ll do probably no more than 15 minutes but it is absolutely invigorating.

“It clears the mind and sets you up for the day.”