The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) released a public abstract of its annual statistics report last week, to shed light on how association meetings were impacted by the pandemic in 2021. This includes a Destination Performance Index (DPI) which, the report states, is intended “to acknowledge and reward the effort put forth by destinations with regard to winning the original bid, COVID policies, adaptability and technological capabilities to convert on-site events into virtual/hybrid events –thereby maintaining business-continuation.”
“We also aim to advocate for the meetings industry and the positive effects that association meetings have on destinations.”
Key statistics create a snapshot
The report’s statistics draw on 8 000 international association meetings scheduled for 2021 and shares how many meetings were planned, unaffected, virtual, hybrid, digitised (virtual or hybrid), as well as business continuation (the total meetings that were unaffected, virtual or hybrid). Total meeting attendees are also captured (both virtual and in-person), and the top 50 destinations are ranked by country and by city.
Another feature of the report that is not typically shared with non-ICCA members is a three-year economic impact analysis to better understand how the effects of the Covid pandemic.
South Africa comes in at #42
Overall, Europe performed well as an association meeting destination during the pandemic. Seventy percent of the top 20 countries and 80% of the top 20 cities are European.
The USA ranked number one in the following meeting rankings: planned (512), virtual (268), digitalization (322) and business continuation (354). Spain also performed well with the most unaffected meetings (38) while China had the most hybrid meetings (71).
In South Africa, business continuation was possible for half of the scheduled association meetings.
South Africa and Kenya were the only African countries that made it onto the index, ranking at 42 and 48 respectively. In South Africa, business continuation was possible for half of the scheduled association meetings – 37 of the planned 74 events. This was achieved by pivoting to virtual formats or, more rarely, hybrid ones.
Advocating for the meetings industry
Senthil Gopinath, ICCA CEO, says, “We believe it’s very important that the world has a clearer sense of how the global association meetings industry has transformed during the past two years. In delivering an abstract of ICCA’s Annual Statistics report to the public once again, we are recognising the tremendous effort that destinations and meeting suppliers have made to adapt and even thrive through pandemic challenges.
“With this Public Abstract of our annual statistics report, we also aim to advocate for the meetings industry and the positive effects that association meetings have on destinations. It is crucial that our global community strengthens ties between each other as well as with industries such as aviation and healthcare. Association meetings create jobs and boost local economies. Moreover, they are vital to international knowledge-sharing and problem-solving.”
Click here to download the Public Abstract of the ICCA Annual Statistics report
