19 congresses confirmed during 2017 which will be held in 2018/2019: Florence will be expecting more than 20.000 delegates. The economic impact generated is around € 21.000.000 in terms of services such as room nights booked, transports and facilities for all the congress participants.
This major achievements have been reached thanks to the collaboration of Firenze Convention Bureau, Firenze Fiera - Congress & Exhibition Centre, the main congress centre in Tuscany, all the PCOs, the local suppliers partners of FCB and the Municipality of Florence (FCB is the official partner of Florence Municipality since 2015).
The President of Firenze Fiera, Leonardo Bassilichi, said: “This great results confirms that our congress centre is really important for the city and to develop our business tourism. We are working on a big project of renewal and upgrade that will make Firenze Fiera even more competitive to host international events and showing to all the delegates that will come to Florence the beauty of our location which is unique in the world thanks to its historical value.”
The results show that most of these international events have chosen Florence for their first Italian edition, involving delegates from all over the world. Moreover, the importance of the team work between PCOs and the CB has been one of the key factor that allowed Florence to win all these conferences.
As a confirmation of this, in Florence takes place the IAPCO EDGE seminar (15/17 January – Firenze Fiera), the most dynamic and valuable educational opportunities in the meetings industry, aligning the forefront leaders of the industry with bespoke learning opportunities. IAPCO has been a universally admired benchmark for quality within congress organisation and the meetings industry www.iapcoedgeflorence.org
A big result for the city that can count on a special subvention plan dedicated to international conferences which has been developed by Firenze Convention Bureau together with Firenze Fiera, Tecnoconference – TC Group and other main players in the local MICE industry. With this plan Florence professionals offer a maximum of 60.000,00 Euros of their best services on the occasion of a selection of the most important e relevant international conferences that will be held in Florence. Moreover, to increase the number of corporate events FCB will launch a special subvention plan soon.
Carlotta Ferrari, Director of Firenze Convention Bureau said: “2017 has been a very good year. The constant growth of Florence in the MICE tourism is a great result obtained thanks to our subvention plan, the strong synergy between the main players of the territory and the partnership with the Municipality of Florence make our destination a strategic choice for congresses and events. Florence is in the top 5 Italian preferred MICE destinations for conferences and corporate events in 2017”(*OICE data).
"The increase of the conferences to be held in the Florence represents one of the main goal for the destination” said Anna Paola Concia, Minister of Tourism of the Municipality of Florence. “Business tourism, hosting events and meetings are very important factors for Florence in order to better the quality of fluctuation and flows in cities such as our own which in some part of the year can be affected by the high pressure of over tourism ”.
