Edinburgh International Conference Centre chief executive, Marshall Dallas, has resigned following a meeting of its board.

There was no comment from the board, but Mr Dallas issued a statement confirming he was leaving his £159,000-a-year post.

There had been concern over the stalled 350-bed hotel development at Haymarket. There was also disquiet over the council’s refusal to provide funding for the EICC-supported  Edinburgh Convention Bureau, which was ultimately taken in-house by the authority.

Mr Dallas’s remuneration came under scrutiny when it was revealed he had been handed a £72,000 bonus in 2022-23 which, together with pension benefits, made him the highest paid public sector employee in Edinburgh with a total package of £231,000.

He was also awarded a further bonus for this year of around £50,000 at a time when the council is facing cuts to its budget of more than £100m.

The Edinburgh Reporter, the local website and free paper, noted that the EICC had declared that the bonus was based on the delivery of key criteria relating to the building of the four-star hotel which also included an EICC hotel training school. Mr Dallas had a background in hospitality before joining the EICC.

The hotel was seen as a vital means to attracting large conferences to the city, with profits from the hotel being reinvested in the conference venue.

In 2021, the council and the EICC entered into a 25 year lease which would see the conference centre run the hotel under franchise with Hyatt Hotels Corporation. 

However, in June it was revealed by the Edinburgh Inquirer, a blog site, that the main contractor Sir Robert McAlpine had pulled out, citing soaring construction industry costs. In September development partners M&G announced it would “seek a settlement” to leave the project after the council’s finance committee refused to make changes to the contract.

At the time Mr Dallas warned that the EICC could face legal action from Hyatt, while the EICC, which had already spent £2.19 million on the project, might have to take action against the council.

In a statement to The Edinburgh Reporter, Mr Dallas said: “Leading the EICC for the last decade has been the highlight of my career. And there were so many highlights along the way, not least getting to work with such an incredible team across the business and partners across the city.

“The venue was loss-making when I took over the reins, we were able to rapidly turn that around with an absolute dedication to being one of the best and most sustainable conference centres on the planet, which translated to holding some of the world’s leading events while creating year-on-year increases to economic impact for  Edinburgh.

“The global hospitality industry was decimated by Covid, we were one of the first major venues to close our doors in March 2020, pivoting to online events. 

“That was an incredibly tough time for the team, when we were used to hosting tens of thousands of people in the building every year, and how we got through that period and then managed to rebound is something I will always have great pride in.

“Our overall vision, to create an environment which inspires ideas that change the world, helped to guide us through the good and the tough times. 

“My hope now is that the future stewardship of the EICC will continue to have the best interests of the venue, our people, and the city at its heart. The value of business tourism to Edinburgh and Scotland is too important, so we must continue to invest in it.” 

The EICC hosted more than 132,000 delegates and visitors in 2023, up from 72,000 the year before, which drove revenues up from £11.8m in 2022 to a record £12.8m in 2023, while profits rose from £699,000 in 2022 to £2.6m in 2023.

Over the last ten years, the venue has hosted marquee conferences like TEDGlobal, along with hundreds of other UK and international association conferences.

These include conferences that welcomed guest speakers such as President Obama and Michelle Obama, Hollywood stars Leo DiCaprio, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt. During the pandemic, the EICC partnered with NHS Lothian to run Edinburgh’s largest vaccination centre. 

The venue calculated that its economic impact – covering the direct benefit of EICC conferences and events to Edinburgh and the surrounding region – totalled £58m, up from £51.9 million the previous year, while the total economic impact to the city since EICC opened in 1995 is estimated at around £850m.