ICCA Business Analytics 2022 Country and City Rankings
The IMEX fair in Frankfurt provided an opportunity to present a number of firsts. On 23 May, in the time and place where the international meetings and events industry meets in person, the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) announced to the general public its statistical report for 2022.
After two years of absence, we saw a triumphant return of the annual Country and City Rankings. The previous version of the report, published by ICCA on 27 May 2021, did not feature the ranking of regions. Rather than that, it showed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the meetings of associations around the world. It was also a tool to lead the meetings industry out of the crisis.
ICCA Ranking Report
In addition to the one prepared by the Union of International Associations (UIA), the ICCA report is considered to be one of the most important rankings in this area. It is a benchmarking tool for the congress and conference potential of business destinations, allowing to identify competitive gaps and advantages when looking to find a host for a particular event. The ICCA database also provides information on the needs of individual organisers and makes it possible to prepare customised bid books.
The publication of the current report coincides with the recent declaration by the World Health Organisation, which states that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, thereby emphasising the return to normalcy for the association meetings industry.
ICCA strongly believes that statistics exist to tell a story, and therefore we offer our members various tools to do this in a comprehensive way. There is not a single country in which the pandemic did not affect at least one scheduled meeting in 2022. The ICCA Database displays the status of each meeting, and in the relevant cases, shows the reasoning behind the organiser’s decision not to run a meeting in-person.
At the end of 2022, ICCA made the proactive decision to revert to normal rankings again based on the observation that approximately 85% of all meetings were held in-person. Of course, some countries and territories continued to operate under COVID-19 restrictions.
In a joint effort with dedicated ICCA members, our Research team identified more than 10,500 meetings, of which about 9,000 were held in person, being either unaffected by COVID-19 or held in a hybrid format. As the association meetings industry is still catching up to the numbers of the last pre-pandemic year (13,254 meetings in 2019), we conducted a brief country and city comparative analysis based on rankings rather than a number of meetings. In addition, we will provide context to in-person versus planned meetings showing how these statistics can be best utilised.
“This is a tremendous undertaking by our team, one that is most welcomed by our members because the ICCA Country – and City – Rankings always generate huge industry interest. It’s heartening to see the drive towards in-person meetings is once more very strong and we predict this trend will grow throughout the coming year”, said Senthil Gopinath, ICCA CEO.
Among the continents, as much as 54% of the association meetings took place in Europe in 2022, 18% in Asia, 11.7% in North America and 8.9% in South America.
Over 40% of the meetings took place in hotels, 29.7% in university facilities and 19.8% in trade fairs and congress centres.
The largest number of meetings were held in:
medical sciences (16.8%)
technology (14.1%)
science (13.5%)
education (6.4%)
industry (6.2%)
Poland in the ranking
The reputation of the country as a destination is built on its inclusion in international statistics, the place of cities in rankings and competitions, the membership of representatives of the sector in the authorities of specialised organisations or the location of “branches” of international associations/organisations in Poland. An active presence of Polish institutions and their representatives in the international arena, as well as the transfer of knowledge, technology and innovation, are also essential for the reputation.
The war in Ukraine, although certainly not conducive to tourism, allowed Poles to show themselves from the best side. After all, Polish hospitality is not only a surge of help for Ukrainian citizens, but also our everyday life and tradition, which is also reflected in the food, hotel and cultural offer.
The effects of the war in Ukraine on the tourism and business industries can be felt differently in different places. Despite a good reputation, intellectual potential, excellent trade fair and conference facilities and many years of work with associations of such congress cities as Poznań and Katowice, only 4 cities from Poland have been included in the ICCA 2022 ranking. These are:
Warsaw (ranked #30 with 52 meetings)
Kraków (ranked #39 with 42 meetings)
Gdańsk (ranked #164 with 12 meetings)
Wrocław (ranked #186 with 10 meetings)
Other cities provided an additional 18 meetings for Poland. As a result, Poland came in 23rd globally, having hosted 134 meetings. Czechia was ranked 20th with 146 meetings, Hungary ranked 33rd (79 meetings) and Slovakia ranked 67th (17 meetings).