With their concept KÖLNDÜSSELDORF – the Meetropolis, the Rhine River metropolises have been awarded project support from the European Union and the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia designed to further strengthen MICE business. The two neighboring cities will now be presenting themselves together at IMEX in Frankfurt, Germany’s most important trade fair for meetings and incentive trips, to further drive their joint communications concept. “The Meetropolis” was jointly initiated by the Cologne Convention Bureau and convention bureau DÜSSELDORF.
With their concept “KÖLNDÜSSELDORF – The Meetropolis,” the two diverse metropolises on the Rhine have bundled their attractive offers and will market themselves even more strongly on the international market as a congress destination region. The communications campaign, which will run for three years initially, will be launched officially at the IMEX trade fair in Frankfurt from May 22 – 24, where the partner cities will present themselves jointly. In addition to participating in the trade fair, the KÖLNDÜSSELDORF – The Meetropolis project’s agenda also includes many other activities, such as advertisement campaigns in leading international magazines and a new joint Web site (www.meetropolis.de), which will be up and running in time for IMEX.
The joint presentation at IMEX in May will be spearheaded by a total of twelve participating companies from the hotel and food industries from both cities, who will share an approximately 85 m² booth, supporting the claim “We custoMICE your meeting” and undertaking further activities individually. In addition to providing comprehensive information about the meeting and congress destinations, the booth will also offer typical food and drinks from the region again this year, served by traditional Rhineland “Köbes” brewery waiters.
The concept goal of Meetropolis is to significantly increase the international visibility of the attractive congress destination KÖLNDÜSSELDORF in order to increase the number of events and therefore the number of visitors in the region. According to the 2011 “Meeting- und EventBarometer” ranking of the attractiveness of metropolitan regions in Germany as event destinations, Düsseldorf and Cologne are the fourth most preferred German metropolitan area among European event organizers and the third most favorite among German event organizers. With a diverse academic and research landscape supported by the universities and colleges in the region and as hub for many of the world’s most successful companies, Düsseldorf and Cologne can easily provide what it takes to hold international professional trade conventions. The two large airports in Cologne Bonn and Düsseldorf and excellent accessibility by train or car provide an ideal infrastructure. The concept of networking the offerings of the two leading congress metropolises in North Rhine-Westphalia, leveraging the resulting synergy, and launching a joint international marketing campaign is absolutely the first of its kind in Germany.
In order to position itself professionally in the competitive convention city market, Düsseldorf and Cologne both opened their own convention bureaus in 2008, which serve as information portals for international congress organizers. The Cologne Convention Bureau is an independent department of KölnTourismus GmbH and convention bureau DÜSSELDORF is a cooperation between DüsseldorfCongress Veranstaltungsgesellschaft and Düsseldorf Marketing & Tourismus GmbH (DMT).
Hilmar Guckert, the management spokesperson of DüsseldorfCongress with joint responsibility with DMT for the convention bureau DÜSSELDORF, views the joint presentation of the two cities as a concept with great promise of success. “The two Rhine River metropolises combine substantial economic power and excellent infrastructure with an attractive flair and impressive diversity. Thanks to the optimized presentation at IMEX and other campaign activities, we are in the position to show off our strengths in the international convention city market even better than before and attract further important events to our region.” Some of the congresses that will be held in Düsseldorf this year include the Energy Storage – International Summit, the annual meeting of the Max-Planck Society for the Advancement of Science e.V. and the International Rotating Equipment Conference.
Stephanie Franke, head of the Cologne Convention Bureau, is also very optimistic about the future of Meetropolis: “The Meetropolis project targets primarily business guests with a focus on MICE. Indeed, both metropolises offer outstanding MICE venues, which this project will network and market effectively to increase our international competitiveness. Overall, NRW as a congress destination region will benefit from integrating tourism marketing and cooperating closely with the Tourismus NRW e.V.’s competence network called ̒Business’, which both partners contribute to.” A few of this year’s congress highlights in Cologne include the International Geographers Congress, Power Gen Europe and the annual meeting of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Medicine (DGIIN).
