Germany Tops Intl. Congress & Convention Assn. Destination List

Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 8/15/2005

Although the United States is the world's No. 1 location for international association meetings, Germany is the top European location, according to the Intl. Congress & Convention Assn.

In the ICCA's annual study of the international association meetings market for 2004, Germany beat out Spain, France and the United Kingdom, to take the second spot in the top five.

As for specific cities, Berlin came in at No. 4, following Barcelona, Spain; Vienna, Austria; and Singapore.

ICCA CEO Martin Sirk attributed Germany's success to aggressive sales and marketing tactics. He pointed to the German Convention Bureau's large national pavilion at this year's IMEX — an annual exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany, for incentives, travel, meetings and events — as one example. The pavilion was by far the largest exhibit, and the GCB was a key sponsor of the show.

German congress centers, hotels and other convention venues have plenty of reasons to care about associations — 360 of them, to be exact. That's the number of international associations headquartered in Germany, said GCB market research analyst Natividad Andres.

And all of them hold meetings, which are responsible for an average 40 percent of overall revenue.

As for tradeshow activity, Andres cited a July 2005 study by the ICCA, which indicated that 28 percent of Germany-based associations include exhibitions in their meetings.