The UK has moved into the top three destinations in the world for international association meetings.
Research from International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) showed that the UK hosted 582 major international association events in 2015. This was an improvement on fourth place during the previous year.
The UK only ranked behind the US and Germany for the total number of meetings held last year. The UK’s figures were helped by a rise in meetings held in London in 2015 – the capital was the 5th most popular destination with 171 events.
London ranked only behind Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and Vienna for hosting major association meetings events.
The city fared even better when looking at the number of delegates – coming second in the rankings behind Vienna after attracting a total of around 117,000 delegates to meetings in London last year, compared to 92,500 delegates in 2014.
The UK capital attracted major events such as the European Society of Cardiology congress and European Federation of Periodontology convention last year.
Tracy Halliwell, director of business tourism and major events at London & Partners, the city’s convention bureau, said: “Today’s figures are a great Olympic legacy and confirmation of what we’ve known for years, that London is rightly one of the world’s most attractive destinations for event organisers.
“We have an unrivalled mix of venues, connectivity and infrastructure with more exciting developments in the pipeline including new hotels and the completion of the new Crossrail in 2019.”