The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) reported a record number of 12,076 rotating international association meetings taking place in 2015; the largest number of association meetings held since it started tracking them, and 571 additional meetings compared to 2014.
"In an uncertain world with ever increasing business disruption, the stability and continuing long-term growth of international association meetings are encouraging more and more suppliers and destinations to include this market segment in their mix of business,” ICCA CEO Martin Sirk said.
These numbers reconfirm the consistent growth pattern in the association meetings market as identified in ICCA’s 50-year report (available here). The ICCA Association Database now includes 20,000 regularly occurring meeting series, 220,000 meeting editions and 11,500 international associations.
City rankings: Berlin New No. 1
According to the ICCA report, Berlin climbed three places and is the new number one city, at the cost of Paris, which took number one spot last year and is now second. Even though the order is quite different, the top seven is made up of the same cities as last year. Lisbon and Copenhagen are newcomers in the top 10, both climbing 3 places to the ninth and tenth position on the list, respectively.
ICCA’s top 10 city ranking for 2015 includes:
- Berlin – 195 meetings.
- Paris – 186 meetings.
- Barcelona – 180 meetings.
- Vienna – 178 meetings.
- London – 171 meetings.
- Madrid – 171 meetings.
- Singapore – 156 meetings.
- Istanbul – 148 meetings.
- Lisbon – 145 meetings.
- Copenhagen – 138 meetings.
Second tier cities are growing faster
Since the total number of meetings in 2015 has increased, this means that the meetings are more equally spread out amongst destinations, and relatively smaller, second tier destinations are becoming more and more successful at attracting association meetings.
Country rankings: United Kingdom climbs to No. 3
The top nine countries all remain in that top echelon, with USA retaining top ranking and Germany strengthening 2nd place. United Kingdom climbed one place to number three at the cost of Spain which dropped one place. France, Italy, Japan and China-P.R. retained 5th–8th place. The Netherlands climbed one place, now sharing 8th place with China, and Canada is the only newcomer in the top 10.
ICCA’s Top 10 country ranking for 2015 includes:
- USA – 925 meetings.
- Germany – 667 meetings.
- United Kingdom – 582 meetings.
- Spain – 572 meetings.
- France – 522 meetings.
- Italy – 504 meetings.
- Japan – 355 meetings.
- China-P.R. – 333 meetings.
- Netherlands – 333 meetings.
- Canada – 308 meetings.
ICCA identified 94 additional international association meetings taking place in the U.S.A. in 2015, 8 additional meetings in Germany and 39 additional meetings in the United Kingdom.
“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”
As one of the very few reports which compares destinations’ meetings-related performance on a global scale, the annual ICCA rankings are one of the most eagerly anticipated industry publications.
Due to lack of global figures on other meeting segments, they are often mistakenly perceived as the destination rankings for the meetings industry as a whole, even though they only cover a narrow segment of the total meetings market: To be included, meetings must be organized by associations, must be held on a regular basis, have at least 50 delegates, and rotate between at least three countries.
Whilst these ICCA rankings provide some evidence of a city or country's relative performance, it is only when all data on all the meetings taking place in a destination are considered—corporate, intergovernmental, non-rotating, etc.—that a true, complete picture can be seen.
Click here to download or view the ICCA’s related infographic (includes top 20 info).
