The benefits to Brisbane of a high-level business delegation through Asia this month could take some time to manifest, tour leader Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said days after his arrival back to the Queensland capital.
The nine-day tour took in the cities of Kaohsiung and Taipei in Taiwan, Seoul and Daejeon in South Korea and Kobe and Tokyo in Japan.
And while the results of the mission may not be known for some time, Cr Quirk said previous experience showed such trips could attract "hundreds of millions of dollars" worth of investment to Brisbane.
"The commercial and flow-on economic development outcomes for the city represent an exceptional return on investment," he said.
"Cities are much more, much more than simply roads, rates and rubbish. Today's cities are economic powerhouses, driving economic activity.
"The business outcomes of the most recent business mission are still in the process of being finalised and the economic development will be realised over the coming months."
Cr Quirk said the delegation also took attended alumni meetings of former international students who called Brisbane their home and were now leaders of industry in Asia.
"They're great advocates for Brisbane," he said.
"We wanted to use this opportunity to keep contact with them, not only from the point of view of them continuing to sell the Brisbane message in Tokyo and Japan generally, but also the opportunities for doing trade with those people in their various roles.
"We did those at each of the centres we were in and they were very productive."
One of those relationships has borne fruit, with the development of the former Supreme Court site on George Street, which would include office space, a residential tower and a luxury W Hotel.
That development was only going ahead, Cr Quirk said, because of the experience of a single international student in Brisbane who saw the city's potential.
"It's a billion dollars' worth of development in our city that stemmed from the father of one of our international students, John Lim," he said.
"Obviously, they're not all going to be of that scale, but there is a lot of opportunity that goes with former students and the fact that we have 75,000 international students in our city each year, that's a great opportunity for the city in the longer term."
Cr Quirk said the business mission was a good opportunity for the 29 business people who went along for the trip.
"The businesses that came with us developed a lot of good contacts and I am sure, over time, there'll be business outcomes to those contacts made," he said.
A spokeswoman for Cr Quirk said the 29 delegates paid their own way and the administration fees they paid off-set all the costs to Brisbane City Council.
