Business tourism last year boosted the city’s economy by £141million – the highest figure ever recorded.

New figures show that between April 1 last year and March 31 this year Glasgow City Marketing Bureau brought in revenue of £2.7m every week.

During that period it also secured 513 international and UK meetings through to 2022 in competition with cities around the world.

Major conferences last year included four which brought more than 10,000 delegates to Glasgow giving the city a cash injection of more than £15m.

The marketing bureau says part of the success in attracting business tourism is down to the Glasgow Conference Ambassador Programme which has more than 1700 ambassadors working in the city’s academic, scientific, medical and business communities.

Glasgow attracted more international delegates in 2015 than New York, Munich, Washington, Dublin and Beijing and held more international conferences than Melbourne, Geneva, Chicago, Florence, Cape Town and Los Angeles.

Nearly 37,000 delegates visited the city last year placing it 28th in an index of 400 cities around the world.

Only London, which ranked second worldwide with more than 117,000 delegates, featured ahead of Glasgow in the UK and no other UK city made it into the top 30.

City council leader Frank McAveety said: “Our year end results are a clear endorsement of the confidence the global meetings industry continues to have in Glasgow and further strengthens our reputation as one of the world’s premier business tourism destinations.

“Nearly half of all conference business confirmed to Glasgow for future years was in our key economic sectors of life sciences, medical, energy, sustainability, low carbon industries, engineering financial and business services.

“The importance of or world-class Ambassador programme cannot be understated. Our ambassadors are experts within their specific industries and working closely with them ensure we are aware of the trends and latest research developing in their fields.

“As these figures show, understanding the value of those developments for conference planners is driving Glasgow’s competitive advantage.”

Kathleen Warden, director of conference sales at the SECC, said Glasgow has again demonstrated its position as a major UK and international conference location.

She added: “The continued growth in our conference sector is a reflection of the SECC’s on-going commitment to further developing its well established conference business and our partnership with the wider stakeholder community is crucial to our success.”