ICCA announces all-time record number of association meetings

The number of rotating international association meetings continues to double every ten years for five decades in a row. ICCA captured 12,212 meetings taking place in 2016, which is clearly an all-time record for its annual snapshot, with 136 additional meetings compared to 2015. The ICCA Association Database now includes 20,000 regularly occurring meeting series, 220,000 meeting editions and 11,500 international associations. To be included, meetings must be organised by associations, on a regular basis, attracting at least 50 delegates and rotate between at least three countries.

New association-type events

ICCA CEO Martin Sirk: “Once again our report provides clear evidence of the resilience and long-term continued growth of the international association meetings sector.” “Anecdotally, we hear that it is not just the traditional association meetings business that is in a healthy state: new association-type events are being created by groups of scientists and doctors, destinations are designing and hosting their own world-class STEM meetings and festivals (science, technology, engineering, maths), online discussions are migrating to the real world of concrete face-to-face interactions, and even corporate events are evolving into community gatherings of suppliers, clients, partners, investors, users and academics, blurring the lines between the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors.” “The Information Revolution and Knowledge Economy are experiencing continuing exponential growth, so it’s hardly surprising that the entire association meetings community is responding in such a dynamic fashion. Traditional association meetings are growing strongly, but they are definitely no longer the only game in town.”

Paris reclaims the top spot

Paris, number one in 2014, takes over first place in the city ranking again with 196 meetings in 2016 – one more meeting than last year’s number one Berlin. Even though the order is quite different, this year’s top 5 cities were also represented in last year’s top 5. Newcomers in the top 10 compared to last year are Amsterdam, twelfth last year and now sharing seventh place with Madrid, and Seoul jumping from 13th to tenth. The top 10 of the country ranking is made up of the same countries as last year, with some minor shift and one newcomer on a shared tenth place. The U.S.A. remains number one with 934 meetings in 2016; 9 more than in 2015. France and Spain swap places: France is now fourth and Spain fifth. The Netherlands drops one place from shared eighth to ninth and Canada remains tenth but is now joined on the tenth place by Portugal, which was twelfth last year.  

TOP 10 ICCA CITY RANKING 2016

Rank	City	# Meetings
1	Paris	196
2	Vienna	186
3	Barcelona	181
4	Berlin	176
5	London	153
6	Singapore	151
7	Amsterdam	144
	Madrid	144
9	Lisbon	138
10	Seoul	137
29	Rotterdam	49
43	The Hague	30
55	Utrecht	25
72	Groningen	19
86	Maastricht	16
91	Delft	15
91	Eindhoven	15
116	Leiden	12
157	Noordwijk	8
168	Enschede	7

 

TOP 10 ICCA COUNTRY RANKING 2016

Rank	City	# Meetings
1	U.S.A.	934
2	Germany	689
3	The United Kingdom	582
4	France	545
5	Spain	533
6	Italy	468
7	China-P.R.	410
	Japan	410
9	Netherlands	368
10	Canada	287
	Portugal	287