Congress organizers who brought international congresses to Vienna last year were invited to City Hall on Wednesday, May 9 for an official ceremony at which Vienna Tourist Board President Vice-Mayor Renate Brauner, Austrian Federal Economic Chamber President Brigitte Jank, Director of Tourism Norbert Kettner and Christian Mutschlechner, Director of the Vienna Tourist Board’s Vienna Convention Bureau, thanked them for their contributions.
They were all awarded honorary certificates, one of which Renate Brauner presented symbolically to Siegfried Kasper, Professor of Psychiatry and Chairman of the Department of General Psychiatry at the Medical University of Vienna. He was chiefly responsible for the fact that the 19th European Congress of Psychiatry with 4,050 delegates was held at the Austria Center Vienna (ACV) in March 2011 and has already booked the same venue again for 2015.
Professor Kasper also played a key role in a number of congresses in Vienna, and this year the city has to thank him for the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, which will be held at the ACV from October 13 thru’ 17 with 8,000 specialists in this field. This event was first held in Vienna in 2007.
Christian Mutschlechner provided one of the highlights of this festive evening: he had just received news of the ICCA statistics and was able to announce Vienna’s top ranking once again to precisely the people who had made this possible. The maxim “give credit where credit is due” could not have been more apt!
City of Vienna honors congress organizers
Vice-Mayor Renate Brauner (2nd from right), Austrian Federal Economic Chamber Presi-dent Brigitte Jank (2nd from left), Director of Tourism Norbert Kettner (right) and Christian Mutschlechner, Director of the Vienna Tourist Board’s Vienna Convention Bureau (left) expressed their gratitude to the organizers of international congresses who had ensured that Vienna headed the world-wide ranking of congress metropolises for the seventh time in 2011. Representing all those honored in this photo: Siegfried Kasper, Professor of Psychiatry and Chairman of the Department of General Psychiatry at the Medical University of Vienna (center).
Photo: © Gerhard Weinkirn
