Copenhagen on top 20

Copenhagen is a popular congress city

Copenhagen is one of the most popular congress cities in the world. Annually the city hosts more than 90 congresses and meetings. The United Nations Climate Change Conference, the IOC congress and the UEFA congress will all be hosted in Copenhagen in the years to come. This illustrates Copenhagen's position as one of the leading congress cities in the world.

Every year the two international conference organisations, the Union of International Associations (UIA) and the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), prepare statistical surveys of the world's most popular conference cities. Copenhagen remained on the top of both lists in 2007.

Why is Copenhagen in such demand?
There are many reasons for the Danish capital's popularity. These include the short distances between hotel and conference facilities, the excellent public transportation and the fact that the city's airport is Northern Europe's major traffic hub.

Copenhagen has an international reputation for its low crime rate, general level of efficiency and easy-going attitude. It is also a well-organised city offering a wide range of first-class cultural activities and entertainment.

The list of the worlds most popular congress cities

Criteria

The UIA and ICCA each have their principles for whether a meeting is included in their statistics. This is why Copenhagen has been registered for different numbers of meetings and therefore has different placings in the statistics. Common to both organisations, however, is the fact that all meetings must be held by non-profit associations. Company meetings do not figure in the statistics.

In addition to the conferences registered by the UIA and ICCA, Copenhagen is also host to numerous other conferences and conventions.

The following are the registration principles of the UIA's and ICCA's statistics:

(*)
This UIA statistic makes no specific demands on participant numbers, number of conference days or the number of foreign nationals in attendance. The UIA statistics also contain national association meetings with significant foreign participation. However, national meetings must conform to the following criteria if they are to be included:

• A minimum 300 participants
• A minimum 40% foreign participants
• A minimum of 5 nationalities must be represented
• Meetings must be of at least 3 days' duration

(**)
In order to be included in the ICCA's statistics, meetings must conform to the following minimum conditions:

• The meeting must be held on a regular basis (i.e. meetings only held once, or the first meeting of a series, are excluded)
• The meeting must circulate between 3 different countries (i.e. a meeting must be held at least 3 times before it can be included in the statistics)
• The meeting must have at least 50 participants