Singapore has once again maintained its position as Asia’s Top Convention City for 10 years running, according to the latest Global Rankings by the International Congress and Convention Association. In addition, Singapore has retained its spot as the only Asian city in the Top Five Convention Cities in the World alongside Vienna, Barcelona, Paris and Berlin, since 2006.

The accolade comes after a stellar year for Singapore tourism as the country welcomed a record high 13.2 million visitors, exceeding its forecast range of 12-13 million. The number of business visitors rose to 3.2 million, an increase of 2.6 percent from 2010, and forming 24 percent of total visitors to Singapore. Expenditure by these business visitors also rose by 4.1 percent to an estimated SGD5.6 billion, contributing approximately 25 percent of total tourism receipts.

There was also robust performance in the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) industry, which saw a 46 percent year-on-year growth in the number of conventions, conferences and trade shows in 2011. Key events also demonstrated strong growth with increased attendance and participation.

“Looking ahead, Singapore aims to continue leveraging the growing opportunities in Asia and our strong knowledge network to further strengthen our position as a preferred MICE destination," said Neeta Lachmandas, Assistant Chief Executive of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). “Singapore strives to differentiate itself by co-creating and developing a strong network of business events within Singapore’s key priority industries. Through close collaboration with professional industry partners and sustained efforts to develop the capabilities of Singapore’s key industry clusters such as biomedical and healthcare; infocomm technologies; environment and energy; and banking and finance, STB serves to attract and develop flagship MICE events of international standing that reinforce Singapore’s attractiveness as a leading MICE city.”

Source: Singapore Tourism Board

Image (CC) AndyLeo@Photography

For the last 10 years, and in fact ever since the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) first started to collect data on international association meetings, the U.S. has always been the No. 1 country measured by number of meetings organized per year.

With 623 meetings in 2010, the U.S. is by far the No. 1 country measured by number of meetings organised in 2010, followed by European countries as Germany (542 meetings in 2010), Spain (451 meetings), United Kingdom (399) and France (371).

However, in the last 10 years the market share of U.S. meetings in the ICCA database has dropped from 9.1 percent in 2001 to 6.8 percent in 2010. In the last year alone, the gap between the U.S. and Germany, No. 2 country since 2004, shrunk from 137 meetings in 2009 to 81 meetings in 2010.

The ICCA city ranking shows that U.S. cities are ranked relatively low in the worldwide charts.

This reflects the fact that very few destination marketing organizations in the U.S. are proactively targeting this sector. The strong national rankings is primarily due to two factors: the sheer size of the U.S. economy and the large numbers of U.S. volunteer leaders in leadership positions within their associations who are launching successful bids.

This means that U.S. cities have an opportunity to make huge progress in the growing market of international association business, if they decide to proactively focus on this sector.

Despite economic turbulence, the number of international association meetings continues to increase significantly. This year, ICCA Data researchers have identified 9,120 events that took place in 2010, 826 events more than were identified last year and an all-time record. Partly, this reflects the strength of the association meetings market despite the recent economic downturn; partly, it is thanks to a record number of ICCA members sending in their calendar information to help identify new events.

“Some of this significant increase in numbers of association meetings in 2010 is certainly due to our continued investment in research and the great feedback from ICCA members, but it seems clear to me that we’re in the midst of an extended period of astonishing dynamism: 2009 and 2008 were similarly buoyant in terms of new association event creation," said Martin Sirk, ICCA CEO. "This has been driven by the acceleration of new scientific and technological developments and the need to discuss these complex changes face-to-face. Anyone who wants to understand what the Information Revolution really looks like just needs to consider how the international association meetings sector is evolving.” 

The ICCA rankings cover meetings organized by international associations that 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 Association Database as sampled on  May 9, 2011. 

ICCA is now working on the details behind these results. The full ICCA statistics report for 2010 will be released end of June. 

The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) has identified 9,120 events that took place in 2010, 826 events more than were identified last year and an all-time record. Partly this reflects the strength of the association meetings market despite the recent economic downturn; partly it is thanks to a record number of ICCA members sending in their calendar information to help identify new events.

“Some of this significant increase in numbers of association meetings in 2010 is certainly due to our continued investment in research and the great feedback from ICCA members, but it seems clear to me that we’re in the midst of an extended period of astonishing dynamism: 2009 and 2008 were similarly buoyant in terms of new association event creation," said ICCA CEO Martin Sirk. "This surely has to be driven by the acceleration of new scientific and technological developments and the need to discuss these complex changes face-to-face. Anyone who wants to understand what the information revolution really looks like just needs to consider how the association meetings sector is evolving.”

As has been the case since 2004, the U.S. and Germany are the number one and two countries respectively measured by the number of international meetings organised in 2010. The gap between the U.S. and Germany is shrinking from 137 to 81 meetings, compared to the 2009 figures. Spain, third country in the ranking since 2007, remains third. The U.K. and France both climb one place to respectively fourth and fifth at the cost of Italy, which now ranks sixth. Japan and China-P.R. both also climb one place and Brazil drops two places and is now ninth. Switzerland is a newcomer in the top 10.

The top five cities are the same as in the 2009 ranking: For the sixth year in a row, Vienna is the most popular city, even though it organized six meetings less compared to 2009, which means other cities are gaining ground on Vienna. Like last year, Barcelona, Paris, Berlin and Singapore make up the top five cities. Remarkable climbers are Madrid (jumps from 13 to six), Istanbul (from 17 to seven), Sydney (from 27 to 10) and Taipei (from 25 to 11). Copenhagen and Stockholm dropped out of the top 10 and Bangkok dropped out of the top 20. For Bangkok, political unrest can clearly be appointed as a cause for this drop. When creating a city ranking measured by total number of participants hosted at all meetings in 2010, Stockholm is third, which means it has hosted less but bigger meetings.

The full ICCA statistics report for 2010 will be released end of June. The 10 Year statistics report covering 2001-2010 will be published late July.