Most Popular Cities and Countries for association meetings

ICCA - the International Congress and Convention Association - officially announced most popular cities and countries for association meetings by participant numbers. For the first time ICCA publishes country and city rankings by estimated total number of participants in 2014, as part of its public abstract of the ICCA statistics report, aimed at international associations.

Like in the city ranking by number of meetings, Paris is ranked first, with an estimated total of 130,516 participants visiting 214 association meetings in 2014, closely followed by Barcelona (fifth in the city ranking by number of meetings with 182 meetings in 2014, which means Barcelona hosts relatively large meetings) with 127,469 participants. Third in both the city ranking by number of meetings and by number of participants is Madrid, with 91,452 participants at 200 meetings. London (sixth in the ranking by number of meetings) is fourth in this ranking, and Vienna (second in the ranking by number of meetings) fifth, with respectively 89,969 and 81,902 participants.

Table 1: Top 10 city ranking by estimated total number of participants to all meetings organised in 2014, including number of meetings organised in 2014

Rank	City	# participants	# meetings
1	Paris	130,516	214
2	Barcelona	127,469	182
3	Madrid	91,452	200
4	London	89,969	166
5	Vienna	81,902	202
6	Amsterdam	79,356	133
7	Berlin	76,880	193
8	Istanbul	75,864	130
9	Copenhagen	57,551	105
10	Singapore	57,497	142

The top five countries by estimated total number of participants is made up of the same countries as the ranking by number of meetings, but we see some position changes: USA is first in both rankings with 365,338 participants in 2014, Spain is one place higher in this ranking at the cost of Germany, which is third. France and UK switch places compared to the ranking by number of meetings and take fourth and fifth place respectively.

Table 2: Top 10 country ranking by estimated total number of participants to all meetings organised in 2014, including number of meetings organised in 2014

Rank	Country	# participants	# meetings
1	U.S.A.	365,338	831
2	Spain	289,039	578
3	Germany	264,156	659
4	France	233,075	533
5	United Kingdom	199,100	543
6	Italy	175,400	452
7	Australia	151,808	260
8	Japan	147,245	337
9	Canada	133,609	265
10	Netherlands	133,105	307

ICCA’s eagerly awaited annual country and city rankings by number of meetings were published on 11 May. To be included, association meetings must be held on a regular basis, have at least 50 delegates, and rotate between at least three countries.