Berlin, April 2013 Sometimes the selection of the right location for an event is very simple, because who needs to compromise if everything is possible in Berlin? The choice of special locations ranges from the 368 metre high television tower to the hangar of former Tempelhof Airport accommodating 5,000 guests. Europe’s most modern hotel landscape offers a unique diversity at favourable rates. To put it in a nutshell: the German capital convinces as a perfect meeting and convention host.
Berlin Convention Office of visitBerlin
For twelve years the visitBerlin Berlin Convention Office (BCO) of Berlin Tourismus Kongress GmbH has offered competent support at the organisation of conventions, meetings and incentives. Customers benefit from the experienced team, a broad network of contacts and the free-of-charge agency and reservation services for hotel allotments.
Since May 2012 BCO has been a full member of the “BestCities Global Alliance”. This service network of international meeting and convention metropolises includes Dubai, Singapore, Melbourne, Houston, Copenhagen, Cape Town, Edinburgh, San Juan and Vancouver. The membership of the German capital paves the way for joint marketing campaigns.
On convention.visitBerlin.com Germany’s leading congress destination is presented in a comprehensive, structured and interactive manner. Event planners are provided, for instance, with ideas for framework programmes, participants get information on the tourism offering of Germany´s capital.
The website offers a new compass for incentive travels: The generator “BerlinCentives” informs about extraordinary Berlin experiences and helps selecting the perfect event.
The congress metropolis Berlin in numbers
The visitBerlin Berlin Convention Office is initiator of the congress statistics launched in 2001 as a pilot project which have since provided sound data on the development of the meeting and convention market Berlin. On a half-yearly basis the data are collected and evaluated by an independent market research company and serve as a basis for future planning. The specialised collection of all Berlin convention and meeting business data shows excellent event and participant numbers for 2012. 123.900 events took place in the metropolis on the River Spree (+7%). They attracted 10.5 million guests (+8%).
Berlin´s hotel landscape convinces through an excellent service quality and high quality standards with a very good value-for-money ratio. This is particularly appreciated by meeting and convention participants. A total of 108,200 events was staged (+7%) and 6.3 million participants were catered for (+6%).
On a worldwide level Germany´s capital is amongst the four major locations for association meetings. This is confirmed by the statistics of the International Congress Convention Association (ICCA) for 2011. With 147 events of international associations the German capital left metropolises like Singapore, London and Rome behind. The leading destinations in the ranking are Vienna (181), Paris (174) and Barcelona (150).
Berlin: Future-proof event location
The German capital continues to gain in attractiveness as a location for large-scale events. By the end of 2013 a new congress and trade fair centre – the CityCube Berlin – will be built on the site of the former Deutschland Halle. From 2014 it will temporarily replace the International Congress Centrum ICC Berlin, which will be completely closed and refurbished. With the re-opening of the ICC Berlin, Messe Berlin will then have almost the double convention capacities. At present more than 438 events with around 161,250 participants per year take place in the congress area of Messe Berlin.
A decisive share in the future development of the flight services to and from Berlin will be accounted for by the new capital airport Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brand, BER. It is currently built on the site of Schönefeld Airport. The latter will be replaced by the BER Airport in the same way as Tegel Airport and the already closed Tempelhof Airport. Using public transport, the journey to Berlin city-centre takes 30 minutes.
Event highlights 2013
The convention destination Berlin attracts many international guests. Those who have not yet had an opportunity to visit Berlin, get to know the German capital during events throughout the world:
More than 3,500 exhibitors from around 150 countries will present themselves at IMEX from 21 to 23 May 2013: it is the most important trade fair for meetings and incentive travel in Germany and takes place in Frankfurt am Main.
The Berlin Convention Office of visitBerlin invites event planners from all over the world to the 7th Meeting Place Berlin. The workshop will be held from 4 to 8 July 2013. Guests are familiarised with the German capital and its hotels, locations, sights and incentives.
The organisers of the Frankfurt IMEX trade show have exported their successful concept to the USA. IMEX America will take place in Las Vegas for three days from 11 October 2013 onwards. Some 2,000 international buyers from associations, companies and agencies will be hosted.
The well-known international trade fair for meetings and incentives, EIBTM, will take place from 3 to 5 December 2013. Hotel buyers from all over the world are expected during the event in Barcelona.
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