Before the advent of the pandemic, the major international organizations used to organize congress events with undoubtedly greater frequency than what has occurred in the last two years. For this reason, we report a dated but very indicative Report with respect to the congress phenomenon.
The ranking of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) is a bit of a litmus test on the health of the market, at least of that segment constituted by the international congresses which are promoted by the associations, which have more than 50 participants and which take place regularly in different destinations, according to the principle of rotation between at least 3 different countries. And if ICCA itself recalls that this type of associative congress represents only a small part of the overall market of events – and that therefore the “real” positioning of a destination occurs only in the presence of data also on corporate, institutional, and associative events, not in rotation – its annual ranking is however strongly indicative of the trend of the sector at an international level.
Compared to the cities that prefer to organize congresses, Rome is in 20th place and first among the Italian cities. Paris is number one with 196 congresses, Vienna, which climbs two positions with 186 congresses, is second, and Barcelona is stable in third place with 181 congresses hosted. Berlin, before last year, now falls to fourth place, followed by London which maintains the fifth position. Completing the top ten are Singapore, Amsterdam and Madrid on a par with 144 congresses, Lisbon and Seoul. The only Italian city, as mentioned. it is Rome, which with 96 international congresses hosted (99 last year) drops by three positions and is ranked 20th. Out of the top 20 are Istanbul, which last year was in eighth place, and Brussels, which was in 13th, replaced by the new entries Buenos Aires (17th) and Stockholm (18th).
If we take into consideration the congresses held within the countries, Italy is in sixth place. Below is the ranking with the top 10 positions. The United States still ranks first with 934 congresses, Germany second with 689, and the United Kingdom third with 582. Followed by France and Spain and then Italy, which maintains the sixth position with 468 international association congresses hosted in 2016 ( the previous year they had been 504). Close the top of the ranking China and Japan, tied with 410 congresses, and then Holland and Canada. Compared to last year, Turkey and Denmark drop out of the top 20 to give way to Poland (17th) and Argentina (19th).