ICCA Publishes Ranking of Top MICE Countries, Cities in 2005

The International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA) released last week the rankings of the world´s top countries and cities in 2005.

These rankings cover meetings organized by international associations which take place on a regular basis and which rotate between a minimum of three countries.

The data represents a snapshot of qualifying events in the ICCA database as sampled on 28 April, 2006. ICCA´s Association Database is designed as a sales and marketing resource for its members to target future international association meetings, which is why it does not include one-off events or those which do not move between locations.

This year the ICCA Data researchers have identified 5,315 events which took place in 2005, a rise of 511 over 2004. Partly this reflects the strength of the market, partly it is thanks to a record number of 209 ICCA members sending in their calendar information to help identify new events and partly it is thanks to increasing research staff capacity.

The country list is topped by the United States, followed in descending order by Germany, Spain, UK, France, Netherlands, Italy, Australia, Austria and Switzerland.

As to the list of cities with most events in 2005, Vienna grabbed the number-one spot, with Singapore, Barcelona, Berlin, Hong Kong, Paris, Amsterdam, Seoul, Budapest and Stockholm trailing behind in descending order.

ICCA is now working on the details behind these headline results, so that the full ICCA statistics report for 2005 can be released on May 26. The statistics report covering 1996-2005 will be published on June 20.