GLASGOW will be welcoming more than 9000 delegates to a conference later this month.

The three-day event at the SSE Hydro will see Jehovah's Witnesses from across the globe jet in to the city.

It comes at a time when the city's marketing chiefs are hoping for a record breaking year for hotels and the rest of Glasgow's hospitality sector.

The Commonwealth Games have been a catalyst with marketing chiefs reporting a rise in conferences over the last two years.

But this year is expected to be a record breaker with events ranging from the LibDems annual conference to the MTV European Music Awards as Glasgow vies for a bigger share of the global conference business, which is valued at almost £1trillion.

Delegates attending the Bible-themed Jehovah's Witness conference, from August 22, are expected to inject several million pounds into Glasgow's economy and in particular the city's hospitality and retail sectors.

Thousands of other delegates are due in the city before the end of the year.

The LibDems' annual party conference is to take place in October, while the MTV Europe Music Awards offer a potential television audience of up to 1.2billion viewers.

Two medical conferences being staged at the SECC in September and October will bring a total of more than 10,500 delegates and they will help to reinforce the city's status at Scotland's conference capital.

Conferences have generated more than a £1billion of tourism business for the city since Glasgow City Marketing Bureau was launched in 2005.

Bureau chiefs and the SECC have brought more than 2200 international and domestic conferences to Glasgow which have generated more than three million nights in city hotels.

One in five hotel beds are taken by conference visitors which accounts for the city's booming hospitality sector.

gordon.thomson@eveningtimes.co.uk