Poland Meetings & Events Industry Report 2021
As with every year, in cooperation with the municipal and the regional convention bureaus, recommended organisers of congresses and motivational travels and international organisations and associations, PCB PTO developed the “Poland Meetings & Events Industry Report 2021”.
The twelfth edition of the Report summarises the meeting industry’s last year’s achievements, which shifted the image of business tourism worldwide. Similarly to the entire world, the meetings industry in Poland was one of the sectors of the economy most severely affected by the Covid-19 epidemic.
– Presenting another edition of the report, we wish to thank the nine municipal and regional convention bureaus and the International Congress Centre in Katowice, who joined in collecting data in their areas. We thank the recommended organisers of congresses and motivational travels, who submitted the data produced in the section on the analysis of meetings and events they organised in 2020. The meetings industry starts to operate again not only in the virtual realm. Keeping in mind the safety of the participants of integration trips or conferences, we slowly return to live meetings. After months of isolation, I wish you a quick restoration of relations and many possibilities to establish new business contacts, which will, without a doubt, translate into the acquisition and organisation of meetings and events in Poland – said Rafał Szlachta, the President of the PTO.
The data submitted to the report “Poland Meetings & Events Industry Report 2021” relate to nearly 5 thousand meetings and events which were attended by 50 or more persons (there were nearly 24.5 thousand of such meetings in 2019). A decrease in the number of events in 2020 is clearly visible in all cities in comparison to 2019. The so-called second-choice cities have reached the predicted decline level of around 76 percent, while in Warsaw and in Kraków, the decrease exceeded 80 percent. It is also worth noting that there were more corporate and motivational events (48 percent) in 2020 than conferences and congresses (46 percent). The smallest portion of the submitted events include fairs and exhibitions (6 percent).
Within the structure of events per sector, similarly to the previous year, the initial three positions included: trade and service (34 percent), humanities (18 percent) and the medical sector (15 percent) which noted an increase of 1.5 percent. Similarly to 2019, single-day meetings (69 percent) organised for domestic participants (88 percent) dominated in 2020. 68 percent of events occurred in the 1st quarter of 2020. September turned out to be the only reasonable month during the pandemic, as nearly 10 percent of the events were held then.
In order to test the full spectrum of solutions implemented by events’ organisers in 2020, data regarding the form of meetings was also collected: stationary (80 percent), virtual (15.5 percent), hybrid (4,5 percent). The results confirmed that the Polish meetings industry has rapidly adjusted to the new reality and has introduced solutions allowing to prepare not only safe but also technologically advanced events at the highest level.
The section dedicated to the real-life examples of mechanisms for counteracting the effects of the pandemic completes the basic contents of this year’s report. It contains the key conclusions from the KRAKÓW NETWORK Protocol, and the analysis of data submitted by the members of the SITE Polska association under the project Destination Poland. As much as 71 percent of the analysed motivational events were held in stationary form, while virtual and hybrid events constituted 16 percent and 13 percent, respectively. The majority of stationary events were held in objects located in smaller towns, which corresponds to the current trends related to seeking safe and less crowded areas. The data fills one with optimism and confirm the fact that the incentive product – from the entire range of MICE tools – has the chance to become reborn as the first one; at least in its fullest shape, closest to the one from before the pandemic. This is due to, among others, the fact that the groups participating in such travels typically have less participants than conferences and congresses. It is also about motivating the employees and the need to integrate the teams after months of lockdown and functioning in home office mode.
The description of the condition of meetings and events in Poland is possible due to the ongoing cooperation of the Poland Convention Bureau of the PTO with: municipal and regional convention bureaus, recommended organisers of congresses and motivational travels (PCO and ITC) and international associations (ICCA and UIA). Each year, these entities collect and transfer data for analysis which allows to view the condition of the meetings industry in Poland in a wide perspective. We must also remember that it is not a complete description of the phenomena within the country.
The English version of the report is available at website.