Manchester climbs business conference rankings
MANCHESTER has continued to enhance its international reputation as a conference venue. according to an influential report.
The city rose from 78th to 68th in the International Congress and Convention Association’s (ICCA) annual report for 2013 and is on a par with capital cities including Moscow and The Hague and US cities San Francisco and Chicago.
The report places Manchester behind only capital cities London and Edinburgh from a UK perspective.
A city’s ICCA ranking helps confirm its status as a high quality international destination for business tourism and is one of the first considerations of associations choosing a future host city.
Amongst the thousands of events held in Manchester last year 34 were deemed “significant international conferences” and were ICCA approved – four additional meetings on 2012, representing a 13% increase.
Key events included the World Congress on Disaster & Emergency Medicine at Manchester Central and the World Congress on Anthropological & Ethnological Sciences and the Congress of the History of Science, Technology & Medicine which both took place at The University of Manchester.
Andrew Stokes, chief executive at Marketing Manchester said: “Manchester has experienced substantial growth in the number of international conferences visiting over the past decade and is securing events with increasingly larger delegate numbers and academic prestige.”
The city has recently ‘won’ several more international conferences including SER2015 – the World Conference on Ecological Restoration, International Surgical Week 2015 and EuroScience Open Forum 2016.
Angie Robinson, chief executive of Manchester Central, said: “During the last decade Manchester has propelled itself to become one of the world’s destinations of choice for international conferences.
“In 2013 we were proud to host conferences such as the World Association for Disaster & Emergency Medicine and the European Medical Writers Association 2013 at Manchester Central. We look forward to taking our unique ‘team Manchester’ partnership from strength-to-strength as we continue to attract some of the leading international conferences to England’s second city.”
