The conference market of the German city of Düsseldorf continued to develop in 2016, according to the latest Meeting & EventBarometer Düsseldorf 2016, a regular analysis of market events in the North Rhine Westphalia state capital.
The 45,317 events that took place in the city last year were attended by 3.81m people, an increase of 5.9% for attendance, the report states.
The Düsseldorf convention bureau aims to build further on the figures and a reorganization has seen it become a new unit within the wider Düsseldorf Marketing GmbH.
Düsseldorf Convention now takes over as the lead brand for conferencing from the old ‘bureau’ with a brief to expand convention business more intensively.
The Düsseldorf Congress Sport & Events (DCSE) agency will remain as a strategic partner under the new structure.
“Growth in the event and participant figures revealed by the Meeting & EventBarometer 2016 confirms the importance of the convention and conference industry for Düsseldorf. It is a real economic factor and, because of the millions of participants who come to the city, an important building block of city marketing. The logical consequence of this situation analysis was to integrate the convention bureau into Düsseldorf Marketing GmbH and rename it Düsseldorf Convention,” says Düsseldorf Marketing managing director Frank Schrader.
He is also the MD of Düsseldorf Tourismus GmbH, a body whose expertise will provide important support during the start-up phase.
Düsseldorf Convention has been headed since August by Christian Ortlepp who takes on the new position of director. The industry expert had most recently worked with Messe Berlin whom he joined in 2010. Together with Frank Schrader he will now be driving MICE business.
In 2016 the majority (44.2% ) of conference and convention organisers came from the Düsseldorf region, although there is an increasing trend towards internationalization, with 9.4% of organisers coming to Düsseldorf, now from outside Germany.
International organisers accounted for 8.9% of total delegate attendance, – an increase of 2.3% on 2015.
The most important source market was the United Kingdom (UK) followed by France, Spain and the USA.
A parallel development can be seen with regard to total overnight stays by foreign guests in 2016: here too, the UK led with 203,000 overnight stays.
In terms of sectors, the city reports a growing share of IT and telecommunications events, which has moved ahead of chemical and pharmaceuticals industry in terms of events held.
Photo: Copyright: Düsseldorf Tourismus GmbH
