U.S.A. and Vienna still most popular association meeting destinations
The ICCA rankings cover meetings organised by international associations which take place on a regular basis and which rotate between a minimum of three countries. The data represents a “snapshot” of qualifying events in the ICCA Association Database as sampled on 11 May 2010. ICCA’s Association Database is designed as a sales and marketing resource for its members to target future international association meetings, which is why it does not include one-off events or those which do not move between locations.
This year the ICCA Data researchers have identified 8,294 events which took place in 2009, 800 events more than were identified last year. Partly this reflects the strength of the association meetings market despite the economic downturn; partly it is thanks to a record number of ICCA members sending us their calendar information to help identify new events.
Table 1: ICCA country and city ranking measured by number of meetings organised in 2009
As has been the case since 2004, U.S.A. and Germany are the number one and two countries respectively measured by the number of international meetings organised in 2009. The U.S.A. is widening its gap with Germany with 32 events, compared to the 2008 figures. Spain remains third. Italy jumps from 6th to 4th place with an increase of 54 events compared to 2008, and the United Kingdom remains 5th. China-P.R. and Austria (which shares 10th place with The Netherlands) are newcomers in the top 10.
For the fifth year in a row, Vienna is the most popular city with an increase of 21 meetings over 2008. Barcelona jumped from 3rd to 2nd place and Paris, who shared 1st place with Vienna last year, is now 3rd. The only newcomer in the top 20 is Madrid, at 13th place.
ICCA is now working on the details behind these headline results. The full ICCA statistics report for 2009 will be released end of June. The 10 Year statistics report covering 2000-2009 will be published late July.
The ICCA statistics reports will only be available online to ICCA members. “The International Association Meetings Market 2009” will also be sent to 6,000 association meeting planners all over the world. ICCA encourages associations to use the statistics as a practical way to identify potential new destinations for their events.
