A total of eight ICCA destination teams submitted first round bids to host the 2020 ICCA Congress. Three were shortlisted just before IMEX in May 2017: Kaohsiung, Yokohama in Japan, and Cartagena de Indias in Colombia.
The final presentations were made to the Board on Saturday 11 November, and the winner was announced by ICCA President Nina Freysen-Pretorius at the ICCA General Assembly the following day.
The ICCA Board of Directors has selected Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei, on the island of Taiwan, as the host destination for the 2020 Congress.
The President stated: “All three presentations were creative, passionate, but also strongly business-focused, each with their own personality, and in any other year, any one of the three could easily have been a worthy winner. ICCA has made enormous efforts to provide constructive advice and feedback throughout the bidding process, to help all finalists to gain valuable skills that can help their overall bidding excellence, but at the end of the day there can only be one winner.
"Kaohsiung told a compelling story of a city that is re-inventing itself through the power of meetings, their team designed creative concepts that will help ICCA engage more effectively with Asia-Pacific based associations, and they demonstrated great team cohesion and offered tremendous value for money. I have no doubt that 2020 will be a wonderful Congress experience for our entire global community. Yokohama and Cartagena should also be congratulated on their extremely professional, impressive bids”.
