Giants of the Associations Meetings Industry

UIA Statistics Report shows the geographic distribution of international meetings, and the top countries and cities in 2017.

For 2017 there are 10,786 meetings of international associations recorded, in 166 countries and 1,104 cities. With 1,596 recorded meetings South Korea lays claim to the number one spot of host countries in the Report for the first time ever. The top three is completed by Singapore and Belgium with respectively 1,034 and 822 recorded meetings. The city rankings parallel the countries, with Singapore, Brussels and Seoul coming out on top.

While the continents of Europe and Asia are the undeniable giants of the associations meetings industry, all continents host their fair share. For the African continent, South Africa leads the way. In the Australasian-Pacific region it is Australia; for the Americas it is the United States.

The Report is compiled from UIA’s extensive database of over 480,000 international association meetings in 248 countries and over 12,000 cities, reaching back as far as 1850. Thanks to UIA’s ongoing research and surveys this database is continuously updated. This means that the number of recorded meetings may increase by 34% over the following five years. As UIA’s criteria for collection and inclusion have not changed since the first edition in 1960, the Report provides a fascinating series of comparable snapshots of international association meetings activity.

The Report also includes rankings of cities and countries for international associations meetings over the past 15 years, and overviews of participant numbers and dates over the past 15 years – valuable information to support the planning of your own business.

Find more information, the table of contents, a press release and the possibility of ordering online https://uia.org/publications/meetings-stats