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Poland retains its position in the UIA 2022 ranking

On 27 June 2022, the Union of International Associations (UIA) published its ‘63 International Meetings Statistics Report’, which rated 96 cities from around the world in 2021. Poland retained its position from the previous year, and Warsaw took the highest place among Polish cities, i.e. 39th place, with 23 meetings, followed by Krakow in 43rd place (21 meetings). In the ranking of the 52 European cities, Polish metropolises occupied 22nd (Warsaw) and 26th (Krakow) places.

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The COVID-19 pandemic hugely impacted the global tourist industry and the meeting industry, as well as international associations’ attitudes towards organising meetings and events. The situation forced UIA researchers to review the presentation of their report, which currently consists of two parts presenting events that took place in 2019 and event data that UIA managed to collect for 2021.

 

This report comes from the UIA database and UIA’s flagship publications: the International Congress Calendar and the Yearbook of International Organisations. Some meetings were postpone two or even three times, while others that were initially planned as in-person meetings had to take place online or in a hybrid format. Some countries are only now (mid-2022) removing border controls for visitors from abroad, which makes the planning of in-person meetings difficult.  However, the situation is slowly becoming more stable. By now, the majority of industries that hold international meetings have had enough time to adapt their requirements and expectations regarding meetings and events. Such changes make future planning possible while retaining flexibility when it comes to postponements or format changes due to circumstances.

The UIA report takes into account 485,157 meetings organised in 11,849 cities in 262 countries by 28,065 international organisations. It also contains detailed data for 2019 as ‘the last good year’ before the crisis as well as an analysis of meetings and events held in 2021.

According to the UIA, the last 20 years (2002–2021) saw Europe as the undisputed market leader, hosting 53 per cent of the meetings and events, followed by Asia with 22 per cent, the Americas with 17 per cent, Africa with 4 per cent and Australia/Oceania with 3 per cent. In 2021, the meetings and events were distributed as follows: Europe held 55 per cent of the meetings and events, followed by Asia with 26 per cent, the Americas with 14 per cent , Africa with 3 per cent and Australia/Oceania with 3 per cent.

The 2020–2021 summary also indicates that, globally, association meetings with 101 to 500 participants were the most common (48.9 per cent), followed by smaller meetings, i.e. those with fewer than 100 participants (28.1 per cent), larger ones, i.e. with 501 to 1,000 participants (11.7 per cent) and those with 1,001 to 3,000 participants (7.7 per cent).

More than a quarter of meetings and events lasted three days on average (26.3 per cent), followed by four-day and three-day events (19.8 per cent and 18.4 per cent, respectively), while one-day and five-day events accounted for about 13 per cent each.

The top 5 list of European cities has not featured a Polish city for the last 20 years. The most popular cities for associations turned out to be Brussels, Paris, Vienna, Geneva and London. The greatest number of meetings were held in France, Belgium, Germany, Britain and Spain.

It is also worth noting that, among the 30 countries presented in the ranking for the last 20 years, Poland ranked 23rd, Hungary took 28th place, and Czechia 29th. There is no doubt that this high position is attributable to the whole Polish meetings industry and the evidence of its remarkable transformation over the last two decades.

In 2021, Poland’s 69 events (that met UIA criteria) earned it 23rd place in the global ranking (out of 99 states) and to 15th place in Europe (out of 45 states).

In a ranking of 96 cities from around the world in 2021, Warsaw was in the highest position among Polish cities, i.e. 39th place (with 23 meetings), followed by Krakow in 43rd place (21 meetings). Out of 52 European cities, Polish metropolises occupied 22nd (Warsaw) and 26th (Krakow) places.

The UIA published the full report at www.uia.org, available to those with an account. The UIA is a research institute and a documentation centre that for over 100 years has been collecting and publishing data on the market of international meetings of non-governmental associations and inter-governmental organisations and reporting on its trends. The UIA compiles its ‘International Meeting Statistics Report’ from data on international meetings that meet all four of its criteria: lasting at least three days, with a minimum of 300 participants, including participants from at least five countries and with at least 40 per cent of the participants coming from abroad.

The Polish Tourist Organisation, and the Poland Convention Bureau operating within its structures, has been a member of the UIA since 2011. In that year, the PTO Poland Convention Bureau, the Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau and the Seoul Tourism Organisation were partners of a comprehensive study entitled ‘Impact of COVID-19 on international association meetings’, carried out by the UIA from March to October 2021 in 25,000 international associations (https://www.pot.gov.pl/pl/pcb/news/polska-partnerem-badania-uia-2021).

Source: UIA.org
Compiled by: Aneta Książek

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News author: Małgorzata Rajwa
News Publisher: Biuro Kongresów EN
Published: 2022-07-26
Last update: 2022-07-26
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